


Loki Laufeysdóttir

by shuttermutt



Category: Avengers (Comics), Norse Mythology, The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011), Thor (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/M, Gen, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Norse Gods Do It Weird, Norse Myths & Legends, Other, misuse of âc̈čèņṯś, typical Norse violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-07
Updated: 2013-06-20
Packaged: 2017-11-13 17:58:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/506187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shuttermutt/pseuds/shuttermutt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A retelling of the Norse and Comic mythology of Loki, Goddess of Mischief and Lies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. She be but little (she is fierce)

**Author's Note:**

> Just a (very) short, reflective piece on my feelings towards Loki (in her female form). A complete mix of Norse mythology, Marvel Comic Universe as well as the Movie 'verse. AU where Loki is: a) always in female form (except when she chooses to assume male form). b) ruler of Jotunheim since birth, basically. c) the events of the 2011 movie haven't happened _yet_ , nor will they in that specific way, but could happen in a different way. d) whatever else oddness I've decided to throw in there. I'll probably mess about in this universe, more--I genuinely have always adored Loki in Norse mythology, and I think I'd like to dabble more in the Loki as the Mother of Doomed Children aspect. Hope this doesn't throw every single person in the world off.
> 
> (Sorry for strangling Shakespeare, as well.)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _She is known as The Lady and all who see her fear her and love her for she is fierce in her power and she is radiant in her beauty. ___

She is known as The Lady and all who see her fear her and love her for she is fierce in her power and she is radiant in her beauty. 

She has born Sleipnir, the great horse-steed, from her body; just as she has born Fenrir, the god-slaying wolf, from her body; just as she has born Jörmungandr, the world-eating serpent, from her body; just as she has born Hel, ruler of Heljar, from her body; just as she has born two unlucky sons, doomed for death, from her body. All of them flesh from her flesh; all of them fated to suffer as she suffers; all of them condemned as she is condemned. 

Her magic is great and terrible and her subjects fall to their knees before it. She has no need for rod, nor sword, nor hammer, for her magic is her weapon.

Across the great Yggdrasil she is called the cold Goddess of _Lies_ and _Mischief_ and _Evil_. The Æsir call her the dark Sorceress. 

She is Loki Liesmith, as she is Loki Laufeysdóttir, as she is Utgard-Loki. The proud magpies follow in her footsteps and the shy spiders spin her silken capes and the sly coyotes bow their heads to her as she passes.

She is sister of Helblindi and of Byleistr. She is the daughter of Laufey and of Farbauti. She is the wielder of the Casket of Ancient Winters. She is the rightful leader of Jötunheimr and the Jötunn.

The Æsir are petty, squabbling children, in her eyes. They languish in golden sunlight and nibble their apples and are ultimately useless. They know nothing of suffering, of pain, of torment. They know nothing of watching their world fall and break apart. They know nothing of cold that bites so deeply into the bones that it turns warm and cradles. They know _nothing_.

Their warriors are loud and bawdy and obvious. Subterfuge and planning mean _less_ than nothing to them. Their king and their prince are the worst of them all—their king because he tried to claim dominion over her people and her land and the prince because he looks at all he sees as beneath him. She would hate him if she thought he was worth the effort.

But he is not. No Æsir is, as long as they fear to tread in her domain. 

And Loki—Sorceress, Lady, Mother of hopeless children—will keep Jötunheimr as her own.


	2. A foolish heart (left here behind)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor learns the tales of the Unlucky children of Loki Laufeysdóttir.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I told you I would probably be back with this. I was so interested in Loki and her children that I decided to retell myth (and comic canon) to fit this mishmash of a universe. 
> 
> Each story is told in italics to portray the characters actually _speaking_ the story aloud to Thor. I've obviously changed the gender of Loki's consorts/wives to fit my purposes. I've also blatantly made up the story behind how Angrboða and Loki conceived and how Sigyn and Loki met. Sigyn was always known as the wife of Loki--and was an Æsir aside--but nothing has really been told of how that came to be. Making up mythology, ftw.
> 
> None of this is beta'd, because I wouldn't even know who to go to, honestly, so please forgive any mistakes my going over has missed.
> 
> (I will never stop mucking about with Shakespeare, I'm sorry.)

Thor is the storm. He is of the storm and from the storm and to the storm he shall go, in the end. He is the golden light of Asgard and the embodiment of the Æsir in every way; he is the strongest of his warriors, the wielder of Mjölnir, the first son of the AllFather. His voice rings like the star-born uru head of his hammer.

He sees the Jötunn for the monsters they are—the antithesis to light and love and and strength. Jötunheimr is cold and barren as Asgard is fertile and light. Its people are as haggard and broken as the land itself.

Their Queen is a mystery Thor understands even less than the heart of their land. She wears Æsir form but scorns the Asgardian people. She seems to hate Odin AllFather, but gifts him with a steed all the same.

The confusion is only made two-fold when he is told of the origins of Sleipnir.

“Sleipnir was given to the AllFather when a mare lured away the great horse Svaðilfari from his Hrimthur master who would have taken Freyja and the Sun and the Moon as his prize,” Sif tells him, eyeing the staves in the armory.

“Prize for what?” Thor asks, enraptured by the story. He’s no clue how he’d never heard it before.

Sif snorts, knowing his lack of knowledge for what it is. “You were fighting in Vanaheimr during the Great War. I assume you didn’t ask what was going on when you got back.” She takes a deep breath and sets down the sword she had been admiring. “Then I will tell you of Sleipnir and how he came to be, as it was told to me by my mother, for this was before my birth.

_In the beginning, the Æsir required a wall be built around the great city of Asgard. A nameless builder offered a wager—he would build the walls in three days with the help of no man but of his stallion, Svaðilfari. He asked, in return, the hand of the Goddess Freyja, the Sun and the Moon for his price._

_The AllFather agreed to this price, for who could build a solid wall around the great city of Asgard in but three nights?_

_The builder began that moment of agreement and it was only then he revealed his strength and the valor of his great horse, Svaðilfari, who could move three times what a man could in one-third the time required for the same man._

_The Gods, seeing the builder and his horse already two miles into his work, knew treachery had been wrought upon them and despaired, for the AllFather could not go back on his deal. Knowing of only one who would manufacture such a trick, Odin AllFather went to the land of the Jötunn, to confront their trickster Queen._

_Their dark Lady sat upon her throne of ice, covered in furs and naught else, for though she appears as Æsir, she has neither the decency to cover herself nor the inability to tolerate the cold that we do._

_She surveyed the great AllFather, he who lost his eyes to _her_ sire, and bade him bow his head to her queries._

_‘Why are you here, Váfuðr, Wanderer?’ she asked him._

_‘I have come to call out your treason against me,’ Hildolfr, the Battle Wolf said to her, smashing the hilt of the great Gungnir upon the ice palace’s floor._

_The wicked Queen held up one hand to still the movement of her guards, spears upraised to strike down the AllFather. ‘You accuse me of deceit, Hangi, Hanged One, but I have done naught to deserve it. I bid you, tell me of this disloyalty I have done, even though our lands are allies wrought from the war you waged with my father Laufey.’_

_The AllFather knew he had to be careful of his words, now, as the silver-tongued witch had reminded him very plainly of the treaty between their people, which could not be broken without the promise of another war the Æsir did not need._

_‘Indeed, Lady,’ Odin AllFather conceded to her. ‘A stranger came to Asgard and promised to build our wall in three nights, with only the help of one steed, for which he would receive the Sun and the Moon and Lady Freyja’s hand in marriage.’_

_The terrible Lady snorted. ‘Why fear you this? No man could do what this one promises.’_

_‘He is no man. He is of the Hrimthur and his steed is the great Svaðilfari.’_

_Her laughter was great and sharp, making the ice hanging from the ceiling quiver. It made the great AllFather shiver as well. ‘I see why you thought me responsible,’ she told him. ‘Such cunning and trickery is generally not found in the Rime. But it seems it has, for this is no plot of mine. I am of no fault.’_

_The great Odin AllFather; Borr’s son; Fjölnir, Wise One; Viðrir, Storm-Bringer, knew the true ramifications the Ice Queen did not. ‘Even if you are not the originator of the dishonesty, the Æsir will not accept Freyja being stolen by one of your giants. It will be war.’_

_The Liesmith nodded her raven-winged head. ‘If it must be.’_

_Odin AllFather left Jötunheimr, then, heart heavy with the knowledge that his people would soon be at war, again. He, Sigþrór, the Victorious One, knew the true weight of battle the unblooded youth of his Halls that called for war did not._

_That night, though the warriors of Asgard prepared for battle, the AllFather was unsettled. By the next day, the wall would be complete, and he would have to give the builder his boon._

_There came a terrible shout in the night and Odin AllFather rose at once, going to his high seat Hlidskjalf. There, Báleygr, the All-Seer sat and Saw what happened._

_A beautiful broodmare had appeared at the forest-line, whinnying to the steed Svaðilfari. The stallion, upon scenting her heat-scent went mad and broke from the builder’s harness, racing after the mare. The giant let out another shout and gave the two chase._

_Although he had the strength of tenfold men, the builder could not catch up to the horse gone mad with matescent in his nose. Both horses traveled deep into the forest, the majestic mare making the stallion give pursuit. When the shouts of the giant were faint and the horizon was pink with the first touch of the sun, the great steed Svaðilfari mounted the clever mare and spilled his passions in her._

_All this the great Odin AllFather watched. He scented the magic upon the mare and knew her to be no ordinary animal._

_As soon as Svaðilfari had completed his task, his madness drained from him as his seed had. He left the clearing to go back to his master builder, but the mare had served her purpose of distraction. The day was begun and the wall was unfinished and the builder would get nothing._

_(He was slain trying to steal into the Lady Freyja’s room. His great steed, for all he was magnificent, was nothing more than a horse and was thus let to pasture in Asgard’s fields.)_

_The impending war had been averted, and though many warriors were left disappointed, the tears upon Freyja’s cheeks settled tempers. None had wanted to see her gone to the lands of ice and rime._

_The mare was gone from the clearing before the AllFather could find her. He mourned even as he sung in the Great Hall, that he could not bring this mare into his stables and prize her for her deeds—but his unhappiness was soon forgotten in good feasting and even better mead, as is an Asgardian’s way._

_Twelve moons to the day later, when the walls of Asgard had been completed by Æsir hand and stood gleaming and proud, the Lady of Ice and Mischief and Lies came through the bifrost before Heimdall, a foal trotting behind her. It was grey and pressed its muzzle to her hand and, bizarrely, had eight legs._

_‘What is the meaning of this?’ Odin AllFather asked upon entering Heimdall’s Observatory. He narrowed his eye at her. For all the witch’s ponderous Æsir guise, she had never come to Asgard. He expected nothing less than trickery._

_‘His is called Sleipnir,’ the Lady told him, stroking the velvet of the foal’s muzzle. The silly creature kicked four of its legs and whinnied at her. Odin wondered at its ability to move so effortlessly on so many extra limbs._

_‘He is born of seiðr and hot blood,’ she goes on. ‘He would not flourish in ice and wind and cold. In the name of a treaty misused by one of my rule, I ask that you take him as your noble steed, Itreker, Splendid Ruler. No horse will ever out-pace or out-last him. He will carry you into every battle and every world you turn him to, as he shall bring you back to your Halls once again. All shall see you upon him and know you for Sigföðr, the Victorious Father you are.’_

_Odin AllFather looked at this proffered foal with his Eye and knew him to be of seiðr and God magic and the light of the Norns. He had been touched by Fate, and the AllFather knew better than to deny it._

_‘I shall take this great gift, Loki Laufeysdóttir, proud ruler of the Jötunn,’ he said._

_The dark Sorceress knelt down and wrapped her arms around the foal, whispered into one twitching ear. Whatever magic she wrought made the horse step from her side to Odin’s. She smiled, but the AllFather knew it to be a smile of loss. ‘So the peace between us lasts,’ she said._

_‘So it does.’_

_The witch took her leave, then, back to her realm of ice and cold, and Odin AllFather took his new steed to the stables. The foal had the scent of magic similar to the long lost mare and the AllFather knew this to be child of that mare and Svaðilfari. He wondered how the cold Queen had come into possession of him, but knew better than to question the Fates._

Sif stands and stretches to feel the pops of the bones in her back. “I was not made to weave stories. I now feel sympathy for those bards we make regale us with the Epic tales.”

Thor rubs his hand over Mjölnir’s uru head. “Where did the Lady witch get the foal, then?” he asks, mirroring his tale-Father’s query.

“You thick-headed idiot,” Sif says, scorn hot on her tongue. “ _She_ was the mare. She transformed into a horse to lure Svaðilfari to keep us from war without losing face before her subjects by flatly ordering the builder. It was perfectly obvious.”

The thought of the witch—whom he had never seen and could only imagine was as monstrous as any Jötunn—coupling with a horse and begetting his father’s mighty steed makes Thor pull a face. “Truly her seiðr could not allow for such a thing?” he ponders.

Sif shrugs her elegant shoulders. “Who knows how the seiðr of Jötunn queens works? I’ve heard talk from your father’s guards that when the AllFather brings Sleipnir to Jötunheimr, the horse follows after her like a pup wherever she goes, even though he is thrice her height. Regardless, I tire of stories and conjecture. Let us go to the sparring rings.”

After a day of sparring with Sif and the Warriors Three, Thor goes to the stables. Sleipnir is in his stall, nosing at a pile of hay. There has never been a time Thor has not known Sleipnir as his father’s steed, to his recollection. He looks into the horse’s eyes, trying for any sign of Jötunn ancestry and trickery. In return, Sleipnir lips at his hair until it is sticky and thick with spit.

-

Odin comes back to Asgard after a trip to Hel to great festivities and celebration. All are uneasy when the AllFather leaves his great Hall or goes into his Odinsleep, and all rejoice when he returns. It is not the first time he has traveled to Hel, but it is the first time Thor finds himself curious about it.

He goes to Frigga, after the festivities have wound down, and she smiles, glad to see him.

“What is your need, my son?” she asks, gathering him into a strong embrace. Thor is and has been a warrior for many years, but he will never deny his mother’s embrace.

“Would you tell me the story of Hel?” he asks. “I wish to know from one who would know all, and you weave the future from your fingers, so the truth cannot hide from you.”

Frigga looks stricken and sad at the mention of the ruler of Hel. “I cannot tell that tale without also telling the tale of Fenrir and Jörmungandr and Angrboða. I cannot tell that tale tonight. Come back three nights hence, and if you still desire to know the truth of Loki’s children, I will tell you.”

Thor, confused over her resistance, nods. “I will come to you in three days with the desire intact,” he says. He allows his mother to press her lips to his forehead before leaving and returning to his own chambers.

The next night, he watches his mother at the high table and notes she looks sorrowful.

The night after that, he watches his mother at the high table and notes she looks apprehensive.

The third night, he watches his mother at the high table and notes she looks resigned.

Thor goes to Frigga’s chambers. She is weaving, expression troubled. She stops and sighs when he strides into the room. “You still desire to know of Hel and her family?” she asks, smoothing her hands over her work.

“I do so desire,” he tells her.

Frigga nods. “Then seat yourself by my side and listen to the tale of the Sorrow Bringer.

_There once was a giant named Angrboða. He lived in the hills beyond the ice palace. He was quiet, like all Jötunn are quiet, but in his veins flowed seiðr of the might that had not been seen since the getting of Fárbauti’s child. He was able to shed his skin and wear the form of many animals; he was able to become invisible as the air and ride the very winds; he was able to travel between the cracks in the universe no one had ever been able to slip through before._

_Although he had abilities and power aplenty, he did not have one thing he truly desired—children. He had been told by a Seer that any he begot would be touched by Sorrow and Strife. Angrboða did not desire to put any of his get through the sorrows the Seer Saw. So he practiced his magic and kept himself away from the tempting members of his race._

_Then came a night where the winds howled more fiercely than they ever had before in his vast memory. He barred his windows and door to keep the worst of the weather out, but to no avail. The wind pounded upon his home until at last the door was flung open. There stood the great Queen of Mischief._

_Angrboða knelt before his queen, chin touched to his chest. He had seen the Queen before, of course—all of her subjects had been to the palace for her coronation. He had seen her as a young thing, as well, when she was still a creature who wore her own skin, for he had taught one of her teachers and had been summoned to watch his pupil’s pupil. He knows the smell and taste of her seiðr even as his own._

_‘My Lady,’ he said to her, still kneeling. ‘I am honored and humbled by your presence.’_

_‘Rise, Angrboða, son of Iárnvidia, master of the art of seiðr. Rise, for I have green need of you.’ Her voice was guttural and brought to his mind the sound of claws rending flesh and gaping maws swallowing it down._

_‘Whatever is mine is for your use,’ he told her._

_‘Your words gladden me, for I require you come back with me as my consort, for I require children of your seed.’_

_Her words brought a chill to Angrboða that he had never felt before, being immune to the cold of his birthplace. ‘Alas,’ he said, and pressed his hand to his chest. ‘I have been told by a Seer that any child of mine will suffer endlessly, so I have vowed to never beget a creature so fated for torment.’_

_The great Lady’s eyes flashed as the lightning from the sky. ‘You have sworn, but I have done not. It has been woven that you will have three children as they shall be_ my _children, and they will serve a great purpose.’_

_‘You would allow your children to suffer knowingly?’_

_The witch bared her teeth in a mockery of a smile. ‘I understand more than one Seer Sees. I know what will happen and what must be. The threads have already been spun.’_

_Angrboða, who had walked between the roots of the great life tree, Yggdrasil; who had watched the Norns spin and weave the threads of fate; who had witnessed the inevitable, understood his place in this tapestry. He was named the Sorrow Bringer and he would fulfill his prophecy._

_The dark Goddess took Angrboða back to her citadel and he took her upon her bed of furs and ice, and that very night she came with child._

_Because of their mixed seiðr, the Queen of Lies became heavy and swollen far sooner than with a normal Jötunn child. Within two moon spans, she was as round as if she had been with child the full term of an Asgardian birth._

_She barred everyone from her chamber three days after her second moon, allowing not even Angrboða into the room. It was silent throughout and the only indication that the Queen had given birth was her calling out as the first fingers of light pondered whether to touch the dark sky for Angrboða to come to her._

_In her chamber, the ice witch held a babe to her chest, but it was not as Jötunn were. Instead, it was a wolf pup, and as Angrboða watched, she transformed herself into a wolf and let the pup suckle his fill. When she was back in the form he knew best, she held the blind, deaf pup up to him and he took his son._

_‘He is called Fenrir and he and his get will be God-slayers even as they will be God-slain,’ she said in her husky voice. The room smelled of blood and magic._

_And Angrboða held his son and wept for his fate, his dark Queen watching with cold eyes._

_There came in the next few weeks much celebration for the first son of the witch and her consort. The wolf Fenrir grew quickly, for he had the seiðr of two great mages in his blood. He grew fierce and bloodthirsty and large as the greatest steed in Odin’s stables._

_On the night of his first moon, the sorceress took Angrboða again into her bed and was once again with child as the sun rose. As with her first get, this one seemed to be sped along quickly by magic. The Queen doted on her wolf-born even as she ripened with her next. Within three moons, when Fenrir was as large as most fully-grown Æsir, when sitting on his haunches, the cold Lady again locked herself in her chambers._

_The next day, at mid-afternoon, she again called out to her consort, and Angrboða beheld his second child—a snake the length of the witch’s torso._

_‘He is Jörmungandr and he will be the serpent that tears apart Midgard even as the Thunderer will tear him apart.’_

_And Angrboða held his son and wept for his fate, his lying witch watching with cold eyes._

_There was much celebration at this second getting of Queen and consort. The serpent Jörmungandr grew to thrice his original length within three weeks, as Fenrir grew still, until his head was at the level of his father when sitting. Jörmungandr grew sly and wise and cunning as he grew in girth and width and strength._

_As his first moon passed, the witch Queen called Angrboða into her bed the third time, and by dawn’s break, she was with child. Though their seiðr mixed as it had two times previously, the witch’s belly did not swell as quickly as had before. After two moons, she looked barely as if she had gotten with child. After three moons, there was only a mild bump where her child lay._

_After four and a half moons, she again went away to her rooms and made no noise until the next evening to call Angrboða to her. In her arms was a babe of the Queen’s Æsir guise’s coloring. The child was far too small, far too pale. It looked dead and Angrboða felt fear._

_‘She is Hel and she will be a Queen in death even as the mightiest crawl to get away from her.’_

_And Angrboða held his daughter and wept for her fate, his ice sorceress watching with cold eyes._

_There came even more celebration for this third get of the great Queen and her consort, for the daughters of Jötunheimr were well known in their power. Hel grew slowly, unlike her brothers. She remained pale and sickly and quiet while her brothers continued to grow larger and more powerful. The witch mother whispered secrets in her daughter’s ears even as she sang strange songs of the dark and the damp._

_As Hel grew, Fenrir begot his two sons, Sköll and Hati Hróðvitnisson. Sköll raged across the sky, chasing the horses Árvakr and Alsviðr, trying to swallow Sól the Sun; as Hati chased the siblings Hjúki and Bil, trying to consume Máni the Moon._

_The Gods watched this and knew fear. They heard that these three children were being brought up in the land of Jötunheimr, and so they traced prophecies that from these siblings, great mischief and disaster would arise. The Gods expected trouble from the three children, partially due to the nature of their mage father, yet worse so due to the nature of their mother, the dark sorceress._

_Odin went to Jötunheimr with the God Týr. He seized up Jörmungandr and threw him into the great sea that encircled Midgard. As he watched, Jörmungandr circled Midgard and grasped his own tail in his mouth. He knew, upon watching, that if the great snake opened his mouth, Midgard would be torn apart. He knew, from the prophecy, that only his own Thunderer could battle the serpent and avert this._

_Týr grasped the ruff of Fenrir and was not quick enough to stop the great beast from rearing back and biting his right hand clean off at the wrist. Odin used his own seiðr to bind the wolf in the fetter Gleipnir and sent him into the river Ván. He knew, from the prophecy, that Fenrir would break free from his bindings and devour the AllFather, but would in turn be slain by the tall child of Triumph’s Sire._

_Last, Odin came to Hel and took her form in. Though she was pale of skin and dark of hair, it was the paleness of death and the darkness of rot. She looked upon him with solemnity and a fierceness that did not seem to match her small stature. Hel he gave the High Hall Éljúðnir, for her to rule and care for those who died of sickness and old age. He gave her the servants Hunger and Famine, Ganglati and Ganglöt, the Stumbling-Block and the Sick-Bed and the Gleaming-Blade as her forever companions. And her punishment, Odin knew, was the harshest of all, for no man wanted to slip away from old age or from sickness, so none of her subjects would come to her willingly and happily. She would be forever half-dead and barely-alive and she would never _truly_ live—even when Frigga’s beloved begat the beginning of the end._

_And Angrboða watched his children be cast from their birthplace, to live in solitude and misery and he wept for their fate, for he had been told it would happen, and he let it be so. He was no longer needed as a consort, so he would be able to leave and mourn his children for the rest of his existence._

_His Queen said and did nothing; only watched with madness in her eyes._

Frigga’s eyes, when he looks into them after her tale, are shining. Her cheeks are wet, thought her voice had not trembled during her telling.

“What ails you?” he asks her softly, wiping her tears away with thick fingers.

“¬The misfortune of mothers,” Frigga says cryptically. 

“The crazed Queen did not seem as sad as you do to lose her children,” Thor says. He wonders how a mother could abide by the loss of her children and not lift one finger to stop it.

Frigga shook her head. “She suffered her loss in silence before your father and her people. She knew her children’s fates before they were thought of and listened to the whispers of the Norns upon their births. She knew better than anyone what would become of them, but knew better than anyone how necessary they are. The balance would not be, without them.”

“She could not have changed their fate?”

“No mother can change her child’s fate.”

-

Thor spends the next few days unsettled and off-kilter after his mother’s story. The more he learns of this Queen of Ice and Mischief and Lies, the less he wants to know. But it’s like a nettle beneath his skin—he itches to know more. So he seeks out Bragi, to tell him of the last of the cold witch’s children.

Bragi gives him an odd look. “That is a queer request, Prince,” he tells Thor, tuning the strings on his harp. Iðunn is humming to herself while tending her orchard behind them. Bragi’s eyes follow her serenely.

“Not the queerest,” Thor says, drawing the bard’s attention back to him. “I am just curious. There are not many people who know the truth of such matters, but I know the wise and clever Bragi knows all the truth of all the tales.” Thor knows when flattery can be used—knows his pride.

As expected, Bragi puffs up and nods. “You’re not wrong. I know the truth of all tales. And for your knowledge, I will give you my own.

_The dark Queen of Ice and Mischief and Lies once found a man of Æsir birth and tricked him. She wore not her real skin, with the carvings of a warrior and the eyes of a demon. Instead, she wore the visage of an Æsir woman—though a woman this man of Æsir birth had never laid eyes on, before._

_This Æsir man, Sigyn, was reserved as most Æsir men are not. He watched over his fields of wheat during the day, and at night, he carved what the patterns in the wood showed him. His neighbors knew him as a pleasant, diligent man, who oft went days without seeing another person._

_One day, as he toiled in his fields, he spied upon a woman lying prostrate in the road by his home. She seemed dead, for her chest did not rise and fall as he watched. He sat down his tools and went to this strange woman’s side. She was peculiarly colored, for an Æsir woman._

_It was true that the children born of Asgard were of gold and bronze and tan. None knew the pale flesh of the cold and dark, for they flourished in the sun. But this woman was as light as snow, her hair as dark as night._

_‘My fair woman,’ he said, placing a hand to her still breast. ‘What has become of you?’ He could see no wound to explain her stillness._

_The woman gasped, suddenly, and shot up at his touch. ‘Oh!’ she exclaimed upon seeing Sigyn. ‘I was walking and became overcome by the heat. I must have fallen in my dizzy state.’_

_‘Fear not, traveler, for I have cool well water that should parch your thirst and quell your sun sickness.’ No Æsir had ever become sick from the sun, that Sigyn knew, but then again, no Æsir had ever been as fair as this woman. Possibly she was from some northern realm where the sun rays were not so powerful._

_‘Thank you, kind sir,’ she said. Sigyn helped this woman up and held her cold hand as they walked back to his home._

_Her eyes, when he viewed them as they drank the cold well water, were the color of new shoots of grass. She was fair of face and lovely of voice and Sigyn, who had spent most of his life among his own company, felt drawn to her._

_‘What is your name, wanderer?’ he asked her. ‘Where do you come from that you might have walked far enough to become weary of the sun?’_

_‘I am Ikol,’ she told him. ‘I come from Vanaheimr.’_

_‘I have never seen such dark hair upon one of the Vanir. They are much like Æsir in coloring.’_

_Ikol looked down upon her lap and said, voice a-tremble, ‘My gold locks were enchanted by my mischievous brother, as my tanned skin was, as my eyes were. I hoped to come to Asgard and ask someone proficient in magic to return me to how I once was.’_

_Sigyn felt ashamed for his words. ‘We have many who know enchantments and who might help you, fair Ikol. But to me, you are the fairest woman I have ever laid eyes on.’_

_A fine coloring ran across Ikol’s pale cheeks and she looked upon Sigyn with delight. ‘No man has ever told me such,’ she confessed to him._

_‘Then no man has ever had true sight.’_

_That night, Sigyn took Ikol to his bed and showed her of her beauty._

_Come dawn the next morning, Sigyn brought Ikol to his neighbor, who understood of small magics. The woman smiled to see Sigyn with company and agreed to try her hand to undo the enchantment. The woman held one of Ikol’s delicate hands between her own and sought to See what ailed her, but she was immediately distracted._

_‘Alas,’ the woman said, running her fingers over Ikol’s palm. ‘I cannot help your enchantment, for you are with child and to reverse the magic done would harm the babe.’_

_Ikol was by turns delighted and fearful. ‘I am not wed,’ she said, resting her free hand upon her flat stomach._

_Sigyn knelt upon the floor of the woman’s home and said, ‘I will take your hand, fair Ikol, for that child is my child, and I would see you both with me for all of time.’_

_They were wed two days hence and none had seen Sigyn so happy or content as he was with his new, fair bride._

_As the days passed, Ikol grew full and round and flush with child and Sigyn continued to tend his fields and carve toys and figures for his wife and future child. They were both content. Ikol brought a light to the house that Sigyn had not been aware was missing._

_Nine moons had passed and Ikol went into labor. She still seemed too small and delicate a thing for how round her belly was, and the birth pained her much. There was more blood than Sigyn thought was safe, but by the end of the night, he held his first son in his arms, his beautiful wife pale but pleased in their bed._

_‘He shall be called Váli, and he is the love of my heart,’ she said. She held her golden, hearty son to her breast._

_Their son was strong and healthy, his cries infrequent and soft. He was a good son and caused no trouble to dam or sire. Soon enough, he was six moons past and Ikol was once again with child from Sigyn._

_Ikol held Váli upon her lap most nights and told him stories of his future brother and the adventures they would make together. She was full and round and flush with this second child and seemed happier than even before. Sigyn continued to tend his fields and carve toys and figures for his wife and children._

_Váli had passed his first year and cut his teeth upon a wooden figure of a wolf when Ikol went into labor for the second time. Again, she strained through the birth, tiny behind her swollen belly and strained from the blood lost; but again, by the end of the night, Sigyn held his second son in his arms, his wife pale but pleased in their bed._

_‘He shall be called Nari, and he is the love of my heart,’ she said. She held her golden, hearty son to her breast._

_Váli took in the sight of his new, mewling brother and touched his soft head with his lips in a way Sigyn had never seen siblings so young embrace. He knew his sons would be different than any Æsir child born before, for their mother’s blood ran through them and only strengthened them for it._

_Sigyn and his family lived and grew and flourished in his house while he tended his fields and carved his pieces. Ikol was strict and stern but overflowing with love and care for her sons, and before Sigyn realized, they were already running about together._

_Váli held his brother Nari’s hand as they chased adventure through the fields, ever attentive to his wants and needs. They had no need to quell any of Nari’s night dreams, for Váli was always with him, calming his trembling heart. It gladdened Sigyn to see his son so fierce in his love for his brother, for Sigyn had not had siblings, growing up, and thus did not know the fraternal love of a brother._

_Their neighbors were happy to see the young family happy together. They were quiet and kept to themselves, but it was evident to any who saw them how much love was wrought between them._

_There came a day, however, when the storm clouds brewed in the sky and lightning struck Sigyn’s fields until they burned, and the great Odin AllFather came upon their house on the back of the mighty steed Sleipnir, the staff Gungnir in his hand._

_He pointed the head of the great staff at Ikol and thundered, ‘Loki, witch Queen of Jötunheimr, I call you. You have been in this land and through trickery and deceit have begot two sons of one of the Æsir whom you had no right to.’_

_Sigyn watched as Ikol straightened. All of her meekness and frailty fell from her as water from a block of ice. She sneered at the AllFather. ‘You speak of rights, but these children are my own, of my body, and thus mine only. You will not have them.’_

_Odin raised Gungnir and they were brought to a place Sigyn had never stood, before. The cave was damp and vast and a waterfall obscured the entrance. Odin pointed his staff at Váli and, as Sigyn watched, Váli was transformed into a great wolf. He turned upon Nari and split him open upon his teeth. The beast moved to lunge at Odin and the AllFather struck him with Gungnir and Váli was dead upon the floor._

_Anguish washed through Sigyn as he watched Odin AllFather kill his children. He looked upon Ikol—the Queen Loki—and saw nothing but frost upon her face._

_Odin again waved Gungnir and Loki was pressed against a great stone, arms and legs pointed to the four corners of the world. Odin withdrew from the body of Nari his intestines and used these to tie Loki’s limbs down. Upon touching her flesh, the slick organs turned to iron and shackled her to the stone fast._

_‘Your punishment for your misdeeds against the Æsir is to lie here, in your child’s remains, until the end of time while Skaði bleeds his poison onto you.’ With a final wave of Gungnir, Odin summoned a great serpent, Skaði, and fastened him above the prostrate Queen. The serpent opened his mouth and poison dripped from his fangs onto her, causing her to convulse and scream. Odin, satisfied, vanished._

_Sigyn, who had been frozen before this moment, went to his wife’s side. The venom dripped very slowly, but to see her writhe pained him so. ‘Why have you deceived me?’ he asked her._

_‘This was fated to happen,’ she said through gritted teeth. She watched as the venom gleamed on the snake’s fang and when it dropped to her chest, she moaned._

_‘You did not love your sons, then, to spare them this fate?’_

_‘The tapestry was already woven. There was naught I could do to stop it.’ This cold Queen sounded nothing like his Ikol, no matter she wore the same skin. ‘You must carve a bowl to catch the venom,’ she told Sigyn, finally looking at him. Her eyes were the same color as the poison burning her._

_Sigyn turned away from her and went to the wolf that been his son Váli. His skull had been split upon Gungnir and his brains were spilt upon the floor of the cave. Sigyn took the wolf’s skull from the ground and used his knife to turn it into a round, high-walled bowl._

_He brought the bowl to the Queen Loki’s side and held it above her, catching the poison as it fell from the snake’s fangs. Loki sighed her relief and shut her eyes._

_‘You must continue to catch the venom as I work,’ she told him. ‘When you must empty the bowl, bring it to the waterfall and let it whisk the poison away. But be swift, for each drop that touches me will cause the land to shake from my pain.’_

_Sigyn held the bowl made from his son Váli’s skull and watched his wife work. A green mist rose from her skin and Sigyn knew it to be the seiðr the witch Queen was infamous for. Many days passed as he watched, and the bowl became full of green poison. He stood and brought it to the waterfall, pouring the stinking liquid into the water and listening as Loki’s screams rose behind him._

_As she foretold, the land shook with her thrashing and he quickly went back to her side to continue to collect the venom._

_Many days passed and he had to again empty the bowl. The cycle continued on until the cave stunk of burned flesh and rot and Sigyn knew not if he could continue to remain._

_Finally, Loki must have completed her task, for as he watched, it was as if she was in two places at once. There remained Loki upon the rock, tied to its sides by the iron guts of their child, but there was also Loki standing beside him._

_‘There are two of you,’ he said. He wondered if one was Ikol, his wife, and which that was._

_‘It is a copy. I had to put enough of myself into it that it has my essence. The iron would not hold onto anything other than its blood, so I had to give it my blood and my flesh and my seiðr. It sits content on this copy’s body, thinking its grasps its mother.’_

_Sigyn watched as Loki ran her hand over the chain tying down her copy and then over the bone he held in his hands. ‘You must stay here and catch the poison, for if too much falls onto this self, it will dissolve and the world will end. The Æsir cannot destroy it, for only at the end of the world will its shackles be allowed to be broken. To destroy it is to set about the end of things.’_

_She touched Sigyn’s hand, then, and looked at him with the eyes of his Ikol. ‘You must stay here with our children, so they may not have to be here alone.’_

_‘I will stay here,’ Sigyn said. How could he leave his sons alone in this cave, thinking they were with their mother? He would stay with them until the end of time, when they would be released from their bindings as well._

_‘You are a good father,’ she said simply and then vanished before his eyes._

Bragi sets down his harp and looks to Thor expectantly. “Did you find the truth in my words?” he asks, voice imploring. He sounds nothing like the haunting story-teller he was during the telling.

“I did,” Thor says. “I have learned that the mad Queen has known the fate of all her children and has played them to her advantage through all their lives.” He didn’t understand how any mother could do what she had done.

It is Iðunn who rests her hand upon Bragi’s shoulder, smiling a sad smile and saying, “I think maybe you did not learn the right lesson, Thor Odinson.” 

“What would you have me learn, Ever Young?”

Iðunn, who Thor knows has been touched by the Queen of Lies’ treachery at the hands of the Jötunn Þjazi, makes a soft noise. “We all of us have a thread in the Tapestry that the Norns have woven throughout the Nine Realms. There is no escaping the Fate told within. Not from the lowliest harvester to the mightiest ruler. Those who accept this can move through the streams of life while those who do not will only fall upon sorrow and strife.”

Thor thinks about her words even as he bids Bragi and his wife farewell. He walks through the halls of his father’s palace and watches those around him. He imagines knowing the threads of their lives from before their births and shudders. There would be no way he could do so—knowing would be temptation to change, and if he could _not_ change the things he saw, how could he live with himself?

He sits in his chambers and watches the sun trace across the sky and thinks about the wicked Queen’s get in the sky and the earth and the dark. Thor has no children himself. He has never thought about having them.

He wonders if it has been woven, a child that the cold Queen could keep.


	3. Thy mantel good (what stained with blood)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The events of _Thor_ , retold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had this in my notebook for about two weeks and just did not want to type it up. But I actually told someone about it, so I had to? Anyways, this is extremely lifted from the original script of _Thor_ as well as some dialogue from the movie itself. Most events are the same-- except the ones where Loki pulls shit, since Loki isn't Thor's brother in this--but twisted slightly. Everything after Thor coming back to Asgard from his banishment is different, though. Sorry if direct dialogue lifts bothers anyone. (Script can be found [here](http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Thor.html). I had a good time reading it.)
> 
> I had a good time writing Loki. If anyone is interested in hearing more about her, I'll probably be writing an essay or two on Tumblr about my feelings for her/why I wrote her the way I did/what the fuck is up with her casual nudity. Stop by and we'll have a chat over tea.

The crowd of Æsir roars as the warrior Prince strides down the hall that houses Hliðskjálf. This is a day that has been coming for years and the light people of Asgard are beyond elation that their Prince will now assume his proper place as King.

Thor grins, holds up the mighty Mjölnir to rancorous cheers. He looks to his people and those delegates from key other realms and to his comrades in arms near the dais and to his smiling, golden mother. His father is serious and stern and although he is grey, he is not wizened. His eye never leaves his shining son.

Odin strikes the staff Gungnir against the marble stone of Hliðskjálf and the Æsir fall silent. He then raises Gungnir before him, pointing it at Thor.

“Gungnir. Its aim is true, its power strong. With it I have defended Asgard and the lives of the innocent across the Nine Realms since the time of the Great Beginning. And though the day has come for a new King to wield his own weapon—that duty remains the same. Thor Odinson, my heir, my first-born.

“So long entrusted with this mighty hammer, Mjölnir. Forged in the heart of a dying star from the sacred metal of Uru. Only one may lift it. Only one is worthy. Who wields this hammer commands the lightning and the storm. Its power has no equal—as a weapon, to destroy, or as a tool, to build. It is a fit companion for a King.

“Today I entrust you with the greatest honor in all the Nine Realms. The sacred throne of Asgard. I have sacrificed much to achieve peace. So, too, must a new generation sacrifice to maintain that peace. Responsibility, duty, honor. These are not merely virtues to which we must aspire. They are essential to every soldier and to every King.”

Odin stares at Thor, then, and it feels like he’s searching his soul through his eyes—like he can see everything there. “Thor Odinson, do you swear to guard the Nine Realms?”

Thor presses his fist to his chest. “I swear.”

“Do you swear to preserve the peace?”

“I swear.”

“Do you swear to cast aside all selfish ambition and pledge yourself only to the good of all the Realms?”

Thor looks to his mother, grins, raising Mjölnir above his head. “I swear.”

“Then on this day, I, Odin AllFather, proclaim you—” He halts, eye going wide at something beyond Thor. “Frost Giants…”

The crowd gasps, shrieks, churns as if to break into a mad rush. Frigga goes into the throng to calm the people and Odin gestures for Thor to follow him. They make their way to the weapons vault, where Thor had been many times to learn of Asgard’s treasures. There are two guards, dead, in pools of ice and three Jötunn, half-melted and also dead. The gates in front of the Destroyer close as they watch.

Thor looks at the carnage around him and clenches his fingers around Mjölnir’s shaft. “The Jötunn must pay for what they’ve done,” he spits out.

“They have paid with their lives,” Odin says calmly, surveying the vault as if it’s an everyday occurrence. “The Destroyer did its job and all is safe. All is well.”

“All is _well_?” Thor asks, turning to his father and gesturing to the dead guards. “They broke into the weapons vault. If the Frost Giants had stolen even one of these relics—”

“But they didn’t.”

“I want to know _why_.”

Odin steps to the casket, back to Thor. “I have a truce with the Jötunn Queen—”

“She just _broke_ your truce! They know you are vulnerable.”

“What action would you have me take?” Odin asks softly, finally turning to face his son.

Thor answers swiftly. “March into Jötunheimr as you once did. Teach them a lesson. Break their spirits so they’ll never dare to cross our borders again.”

Odin smiles, but it’s certainly not a kind one. Not the smile he gives Thor when he’s answered correctly in their mock-battles of war and strategy. “You’re thinking only as a warrior.”

“This was an act of war!”

“It was the act of but a few, doomed to fail.”

“Look how far they got!”

“We will find the breach in our defenses. It will be found, and it will be sealed.”

Odin sounds tired and painfully old, but Thor presses. “As King of Asgard—”

“But you’re _not_ King,” Odin snaps, eye burning with fire Thor has not seen in some time. “Not yet.” He brushes past Thor without another word and leaves the vault.

Thor retreats to a lesser banquet hall, stung and raging at his father’s harsh treatment of him. He paces the length of the hall, but it does nothing to drain the abscess of his anger, so he turns over the long table, feeling gladness at the crashing of plates and goblets. 

Sif and her Warriors Three choose that moment to come following in. “Redecorating, are we?” she asks.

“What’s this?” Volstagg asks, clearly distraught.

“It is unwise to be in my company right now, friends,” Thor says, surveying the damage he’s caused.

Sif takes a step towards him, regardless, places her hand on his forearm.

“This was to be my day of triumph,” he says softly, at war with the rage still coiled in his belly.

“It will come,” Sif tells him. “In time.” She pauses and watches as Fandral pats Volstagg on the back over the spilled food. “If it’s any consolation, I think you’re right about the Frost Giants. If a few of them could penetrate the defenses of Asgard once, who’s to say they won’t try again. Next time with an army.” Sif has always through strategically, has always had a mind for battles, past and future.

Thor nods. “Yes, exactly.”

“But there’s nothing we can do,” she says softly, then moves away to discuss something with Hogun.

Her words spark something in Thor and he stands up suddenly, drawing their attention. He hefts Mjölnir in his hand. “There’s only one way to ensure the safety of our borders,” he declares.

Volstagg eyes him. “What madness do you speak?”

Thor grins. “We’re going to Jötunheimr.”

“ _What_?” Fandral stands suddenly from his perch near the fire.

“Thor,” Sif says, watching him with narrowed eyes. “Of all the laws of Asgard, this is one you must not break.”

Fandral nods. “This isn’t like a journey to Earth, where you summon a little lightning and thunder and the mortals worship you as a god. This is Jötunheimr.”

“And if the Frost Giants don’t kill you, your Father will!” Volstagg adds, waving his hand around.

“My Father fought his way into Jötunheimr, defeated their armies and forced a treaty from their fallen King,” Thor says, pride laced in his words. “We’d just be looking for answers.”

Sif shakes her head. “It is _forbidden_.”

Thor grins, laughs at her hardened face. “My friends, have you forgotten all that we’ve done together?” He gazes at Fandral. “Who brought you into the sweet embrace of the most exotic maidens in all of Yggdrasil?”

Fandral frowns, sullen. “You did.”

“Who led you into the most glorious of battles?” he asks Hogun. “And to delicacies so succulent you thought you’d died and gone to Valhalla?” he directs to Volstagg.

The two Warriors look at each other, and then back to him. “You did,” they say in stereo.

Thor looks to Sif, smile softening. “And who proved wrong all who scoffed at the idea that a young maiden could be one of the fiercest warriors this Realm has ever known?” he asks.

Sif glares at him, mouth going mulish. “I did.”

He laughs. “True! But I supported you, Sif.” He turns to regard them all. “My friends, trust me now. We must do this. For Asgard.” His grin turns sharp once more. “Surely you’re not going to let me take all the glory, are you?”

“I certainly won’t,” says Fandral. “I go by Thor’s side.”

“And I,” says Volstagg, still looking uncertain.

Hogun nods. “And I. The Warriors Three fight together.”

Sif buries her face in her hands, but says, “I fear we will live to regret this.”

“If we’re lucky,” Volstagg murmurs.

They stride from the banquet hall and to the stables for their mounts. The ride across the Bifrost is silent and tense with the upcoming journey. Even Volstagg is not at his usual level of merriment that going on a quest brings. This is too serious for jests, and all of them know it. The horses are left before Heimdallr’s Observatory and they stand outside together, uncertain.

“We must find a way to get past Heimdallr,” Thor says.

Volstagg shakes his head, tugging at his ruddy beard in a show of nerves. “That will be no easy task. It’s said the Gatekeeper can see a single dew drop fall from a blade of grass a thousand worlds away.”

“And he can hear a cricket passing gas in Niffelheim,” Fandral says, trying to lighten the mood. 

“Jest not!” Volstagg hisses, staring about them wildly. “He hears all!”

Fandral puffs his chest, undaunted. “Please. Getting past him should be simple enough now, since he seems to be letting Frost Giants sneak under his nose.”

Volstagg makes a horrified face to the sky, as if Heimdallr is above them, watching.

The God himself comes forth from his Observatory, sword already in hand. He watches them with his keen, golden gaze, and all but Hogun flinch back from that piercing stare. His face betrays nothing. His eyes hold starlight and Thor has always known him to be other from the Æsir—born of Nine Mothers, he can be nothing but Other.

“You’re not dressed warmly enough,” Heimdallr says, voice booming with the sound of stars being born and colliding in death.

“I’m sorry?” Sif asks.

Heimdallr doesn’t smile, but his tone holds amusement. “The freezing cold of Jötunheimr. It will kill you all in time, even the mighty Thor.” He makes a sound of amusement, rough like a seal barking. “You think you can deceive me? I, who watches all? I, who can sense the flapping of a butterfly’s wings a thousand worlds away?” His gaze moves to pin Fandral. “Or can hear a cricket passing gas in Niffelheim?”

Fandral’s mouth falls open. “That was just a bit of jest, really—”

“Enough,” Thor says. “Heimdallr, may we pass?”

Something in Heimdallr’s gaze shifts, and Thor feels like he can see the anger of a black hole within them. It’s all he can do not to shiver at the sight. “For ages have I watched over Asgard and kept it safe from those who would do it harm. In all that time, never has an enemy slipped by my watch—until this day.” He pauses and his eyes return from their trip. He gazes at Thor. “I wish to know how that happened.”

Thor nods. “Then tell no one where we’ve gone until we’ve returned.”

Heimdallr steps to the side and they pass by him, Volstagg edging around him nervously. Fandral keeps a respectful distance as well. Once they’re inside, Heimdallr sweeps into his Observatory and climbs the stairs up to the dais. He inserts his sword and blue lightning starts to emanate from it.

“Be warned,” Heimdallr says softly, looking them over with his keen, star-lined eyes. “I will honor my sworn oath to protect this Realm as its Gatekeeper. If your return threatens the safety of Asgard, the Bifrost will remain closed to you. You’ll be left to die in the cold wastes of Jötunheimr.”

Volstagg shifts nervously in place. “Couldn’t you just leave the bridge open for us?”

“To keep this bridge open would be to unleash the full power of the Bifrost and destroy Jötunheimr with you upon it.”

“Ah. Never mind, then.”

Thor turns from the others and grins. “I have no plans to die today.”

Heimdallr gazes at him, sharp and painful. “None do.”

He activates the Bifrost and Thor feels the lightning crawl over his skin as they’re transported over the vast reaches of space. Landing on Jötunheimr makes him realize that the journey was nowhere near as cold as the destination.

They arrive on Jötunheimr and it feels as if the land itself would rise up to claim their hot blood for its own, if it could. Thor has never seen a land quite as this—and he’s been to the mines of the Dwarves and the forests of the Dark Elves.

For all that it is cold and ice, Thor can sense a life in Jötunheimr. Beneath his feet, it seems as if a great beast stretches indolently and watches them with the sleep-narrowed eyes of a waking animal prepared to feast.

They make for the ice palace in the distance. It was erected for the Witch Queen, as she did not favor the open court her father Laufey left her. Thor felt his blood rush upon the thought of finally being able to lay eyes on this sorceress of which he had learned much and naught at the same time.

They entered the palace, guards still as if carved from the ice beside the doors. Thor wondered if that was how these creatures were born—carved from the very land itself. The palace is no less chill for being behind walls. Thor can feel the leather in his armor cracking and trying to stem away frost. There are no torches, but ponderous orbs made of blue light that line the halls.

At last, they get to the throne room. There are armored Jötunn beside the throne, but they look not at the Æsir warriors. Thor looks upon the figure on the throne and marvels.

She, indeed, is a creature in Æsir form, the Ice Queen. Her skin is fairer than any natural get of Asgard and her hair the color of raven down, but for all that, she would not look out of place in Odin’s halls. Her eyes, however, are the poisonous green of venom. 

It’s only when he looks to the rest of her details that he realizes she is nude but for a furred cloak about her shoulders and a gold circlet upon her brow. Her dusky nipples aren’t even tight from the frozen air. Thor is almost surprised to see the thatch of hair between her legs to cover her sex—he feels it’s not for the sake of modesty, as she seemingly has none.

When he raises his eyes to hers again, there is deep amusement there.

“What business have you in my realm, Odinson?” she asks him, tapping her green tipped talons against the arm of her seat. The sound reminds Thor of the rattle of bones together and her voice brings to mind the groaning of mountains.

“I demand answers,” Thor says, widening his stance.

She laughs in his face. It sounds like breaking ice. Thor is unaccustomed to such disrespect but tries not to visually bristle. “You _demand_?” she mocks.

“How did your people get into Asgard?”

She looks away from Thor, towards a window that overlooks her realm. “The house of Odin is full of traitors.”

“Do not dishonor my father’s name with your lies,” Thor spits, taking a step forward.

The Ice Queen laughs again and it hurts Thor’s ears to listen to it. “Why have you come here? To make peace? You long for battle. You crave it. I see you for what you are, Thor Odinson. Nothing but a boy, trying to prove himself a man.”

Thor feels the rage bubbling up in his guts. “This boy has grown tired of your mockery.” He steps forward again, but as soon as he moves, one of the guards seemingly appears before him, blocking his sight to the Queen, hand already encased in ice sharp enough to pierce and kill.

Sif grabs Thor’s arm and pulls him back. “Thor, stop and think. Look around you. We are outnumbered.”

“Know your place,” he snaps, tearing his arm from her grip. She looks momentarily hurt, but hides it behind her warrior’s mask.

“You should listen to her council,” the Sorceress says as her guard steps aside. “You know not what your actions would unleash. I do.” She smiles wide, crimson mouth stretched over sharp teeth. “Your words are hasty, prince of Asgard. Those who were slain were not acting upon my orders. They have paid with their own blood.” She stands, cloak falling down around her shoulders, and steps down from her throne. Her bare feet make no noise as she moves against the ice. “Take care your actions, golden one. The AllFather and I have come to our own terms. Go now, while I still allow it.”

Thor opens his mouth to argue, but Sif steps up before him, smiles even though her eyes are hard. “We will accept your most gracious offer,” she says, playing the simpering maiden they all know her not to be. From the amusement clouding the Ice Queen’s eyes, she knows it as well.

The Warriors Three watch him carefully, to see if he really is willing to leave. It burns down his throat to swallow his pride, but Sif is right. They are outnumbered. Fighting would be pointless. He turns to leave and they follow him out of the palace. There are Jötunn all around, now, watching them with cold, hard eyes. Thor keeps his head high as he walks past them.

One of the Frost Giants laughs. “Run back home, little princess,” he says.

He stops dead in his tracks and Sif whispers, “Damn.” With a swift move, Thor unleashes Mjölnir, turning to strike the loudmouthed Jötunn. It’s not long before his comrades are drawn into fighting with other Jötunn not content to let them walk away.

Thor laughs, for battle was joyous, always, and the Jötunn were fiercer than most. They struck with power that, had Thor been a mortal man, would shatter him. His comrades fare as well, quick with their attacks. Thor turns and spies the Ice Queen making her way out of the Palace doors. Still, she looks amused. 

He is brought back to the battle when he hears grunts of pain from both Sif and Fandral. Sif has been knocked to the side, but she gets up quickly and dispatches her attacker. Fandral, on the other hand, has a gut wound that is bleeding heavily. Volstagg goes to him quickly, getting an arm around his shoulders.

The Warriors Three start to retreat, Sif acting as their rear guard. Thor does not want to end this battle so quickly, but his comrades are injured and need to be treated. He can see that, even through his blood lust.

They make their way to the Bifrost point and when Thor turns to look, the number of Jötunn following is overwhelming. He knows there is no way he can defeat them with his injured comrades to protect.

He lifts his head to the heavens and calls out “Heimdallr! Open the Bridge!” The Bridge does not, however, open. The sky stays full of ice, but no blue lightning signifying the opening. “Heimdallr!”

Finally, once the Jötunn have surrounded them, and it seems like they really are going to be left to die, the Bifrost opens, light streaming before them. Thor hears what he knows is Sleipnir whinnying and he knows who’s come to save them.

The Jötunn masses fall back and part before the Ice Queen. She walks calmly towards the AllFather, still naked but for her furred cloak. Even through his battle lust, Thor sees the way Sleipnir snorts and tosses his head, forehooves cleaving the iced ground in an anxious dance. The Sorceress spars him a smile, but it turns hard when she looks to the AllFather.

Odin is clad in his battle armor. Sleipnir wears his as well. He’s holding Gungnir, although his hand is not as steady as Thor remembers it always being. The Jötunn Queen gestures with her hand and the ice around her raises her up to Odin’s level. Sleipnir reaches out his neck to butt up against her arm with his nose, but she does not react.

“AllFather,” she says softly. “You look weary.”

“Loki,” Odin says, voice creaking like old trees swaying in the wind. His body is swaying on the saddle as well. “End this.”

The Ice Queen tilts her head to the side, seizing him up. “Your boy sought this out.”

Odin nods, the gesture looking more like a bowing of his head than it should. “You’re right. These are the actions of a boy. Treat them as such. You and I can stop this before there’s further bloodshed.”

“We are beyond diplomacy now, AllFather,” the Sorceress says. “He’ll get what he came for—war and death.” She doesn’t sound as gleeful about it as Thor feels she should. As all Jötunn probably are.

Odin shuts his eye for a moment, and then opens it, hardened. “So be it.”

The Bifrost opens and takes them home before anyone can make a move to stop it.

“Why did you bring us back, Father?” Thor demands as soon as they’re settled upon the Observatory’s deck. Odin pulls Heimdallr’s sword from the control panel and throws it back to him. The dark God backs away, watching in silence.

“Do you realize what you’ve done?” Odin spits out. “What you’ve started?”

Thor bristles. “I was protecting my home.”

“You cannot protect your friends. How can you hope to protect a Kingdom?” He turns and looks Sif and the Warriors Three over, disgust plain on his face. “Get him to the healing room.” Thor’s comrades leave quickly, unwilling to further disobey their King.

Thor snarls. “There won’t _be_ a Kingdom to protect if you’re afraid to act!”

Odin turns and pierces him with his stare.

“Whatever the cost,” Thor continues, undaunted, “the world must know the new King of Asgard will not be held in contempt.”

“That’s pride and vanity that talks!” Odin shouts. “Not leadership! Have you forgotten everything I’ve taught you? What of a warrior’s patience, cunning?”

Thor snorts. “While you wait and be patient, the Nine Realms laugh at us. The old ways are done. You’d stand giving speeches while Asgard falls.”

“You’re a vain, greedy, _cruel_ boy!” Odin growls.

“And you are an old man and a fool!”

Thor feels as if the whole world stops at his words. Odin’s face seems to collapse, and then melt into the calm state it generally keeps. When he speaks next, his words are calm, soft.

“A fool, yes. I was a fool to think you were ready.” He walks to the control panel and thrusts Gungnir into the slot. “Thor Odinson…You have disobeyed the express command of your King. Through your arrogance and stupidity, you have opened these peaceful Realms and innocent lives to the horrors of war.”

The lightning of the Bifrost starts to erupt from Gungnir. “You are unworthy of this Realm,” Odin continues. He strides towards Thor and rips the discs off Thor’s chest plate. “Unworthy of your title.” He snatches away his cloak. “You are unworthy of the loved ones you’ve betrayed. I hereby take from you your power.” He holds out his hand and wrenches it to the side and Mjölnir flies from Thor’s grip into Odin’s.

“In the name of my father,” Odin says softly. A finger of lightning flies from Mjölnir and hits Thor’s right arm, disintegrating his armor and chest plate. “And of his father before.” Another finger of lightning disintegrates what’s left of Thor’s armor.

“I, Odin, AllFather, cast you out!” Odin shouts. He holds Mjölnir out before him and lightning explodes around him and before Thor’s eyes. It’s the first time that Thor has ever feared the consequences of lightning touching him.

He’s flung through the Bifrost and it’s dizzying and terrifying and nothing like any other time he’s ridden this lightning. He’s sent somewhere, but he’s so disoriented from the banishment that he can’t get his bearings on where he is.

The last thing Thor sees after being struck is a lovely young woman. He thinks _but her eyes are wrong_ before darkness takes him.

-

_Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor._

-

The Midgardian hospital is nothing like Asgard’s healing rooms. It’s so stark and cold and unfeeling. The healing rooms were always warm and full of regard for the patients. Thor does not think he should be blamed for his negative reactions.

He finally manages to escape the human bindings, only to be struck by the fair lady and her companions once more. The woman is lightning-quick with her mind and the girl is curious, but the man worries Thor. He watches with a deep suspicion in his eyes that makes Thor sit up straight.

After far too many breaks—and not nearly enough food—they get to the Lady Jane’s workshop. It is a curious building of glass and steel and filled with equipment Thor has never seen, before. It’s quite amazing, really, and distracts him from the empty feeling he gets from Mjölnir not being at his side.

Thor takes a look at the glossy pictures tacked to a board in the middle of the lab. He notes the one that has his form falling from the Bifrost. She points at it, says,

“What were you doing in that?”

“What does anyone do in the Bifrost?” he asks, running his finger over the reds and greens of the photo. He’s only ever seen the Bifrost as lightning in action. Never this aurora.

Selvig frowns. “The Bifrost…” he murmurs to himself.

Jane fiddles with her notebook. “What exactly is the Bifrost?” she asks.

“A method of travel.”

The Lady Jane gets tired of his half-answers, eventually, and brings them to a place that smells amazingly of food. She sits them down and all Thor can pay attention to is filling himself with enough sustenance to satisfy his mortal form. In Asgard, eating was for pleasure—here, it seems, it is a necessity for him.

As he’s eating, Jane opens her notebook and says, “Tell us exactly what happened to you last night. How did you get inside that cloud?”

Thor moves to answer, but he’s distracted by the two men that enter the building. They’re speaking to the owner of the establishment about a crater with some sort of satellite that’s unmovable to any man that tries. Then they say something about some sort of Fed chasing them away, which means nothing to Thor. The only thing that matters to him is that he knows, in his bones, that they’re speaking of Mjölnir. It could be nothing else.

His father has not abandoned him completely, then.

He asks the talkative man where this satellite is and is directed outside of town. Thor wipes his hands on his trousers and nods. He leaves the building, heedless of Jane’s crying out for him. As soon as he’s outside, he looks at the sun to gain his bearings. Jane catches up with him and walks at his side.

“Where are you going?” she asks.

“Fifty miles east of here.”

“Why?”

Thor glances at her. “To get what belongs to me.”

She rolls her eyes. “So now you own a satellite?”

Her tone makes Thor smile, reminds him of Sif. “It’s not what they say it is.”

“Whatever it is, the government seems to think it’s theirs. You intend to just walk in there and take it?” she asks, walking quickly to keep up with him.

Thor stops. “Yes. If you take me there now, I’ll tell you everything you wish to know.”

Jane frowns, bites her lip and looks up at him, hesitant. “Everything?”

“All the answers you seek will be yours, once I reclaim Mjölnir.” He finally notices Darcy and Selvig have caught up to them.

“Mew-mew?” Darcy asks. “What’s Mew-mew?”

Selvig pulls Jane aside and says something to her softly, but Thor is not worried. Either Jane will help him or she won’t. Either way, he will get Mjölnir back. She finally comes back, Selvig trailing her and watching Thor, distrustful.

“I’m sorry, I can’t take you.” She sounds honestly sad about it.

Thor nods. “I understand. Then this is where we say goodbye.” He bows slightly to all of them, knowing he would have been lost without their bemused kindness. “Jane Foster, Erik Selvig, Darcy. Farewell.” He nods at them all and turns to start heading east. Fifty miles is far when he can’t fly.

He’s only two miles into his journey when Jane pulls up in her vehicle beside him. 

“Hey. Still need a lift?” she asks, grinning.

The journey is informative, for Thor. He learns of Jane’s cleverness, what has been stolen from her, and her braveness to face this challenge, this unknown with him. For him. He appreciates that kind of gallantry. It so reminds him of Sif.

“Who are you? Really?” Jane asks as the skies darken over the desert. They’re close. Thor can feel it.

“You’ll see soon enough.”

When they arrive at the place Thor knows Mjölnir to be, he is surprised at what he sees. It’s very different from Jane’s workshop, or the diner. There are vehicles much like Jane’s, men with weapons and military uniforms. Other men in coats carrying things like some of the devices that used to be at Jane’s laboratory. There is a small clustering of buildings made out of some white canvas and Thor knows Mjölnir is in the middle of the structure.

“This isn’t a satellite crash,” Jane murmurs. “They would have hauled the wreckage away, not built a city around it.”

Thor gets Jane situated and makes his way to the city of canvas buildings. He can feel the storm brewing around them in his bones, relishes the feel of the rain. He’s always loved the weather, and knowing he’ll have Mjölnir in his hands soon makes him crave it more.

He’s managed to incapacitate two guards and gather a disguise, but before he can get to Mjölnir, the lights come up and an alarm sounds. He makes his way to the center of the complex, where he can feel Mjölnir calling to him and is met with more guards.

The battle feels much like his battle with the Frost Giants. These men are highly trained and skilled and with Thor’s mortal body, it’s harder to fight as effortless as he should. He still manages to finally get his eyes on Mjölnir, not caring about anything going on around him anymore.

He firmly grasps the shaft of his hammer and pulls. She stays stuck. Frowning, he grips her with both hands, pulling as hard as his muscles allow. She doesn’t even budge. Thor howls, going down to his knees, feeling his heart cry out.

Thor may not wield his God-power any longer, but he has always been of the storm—always will be of the storm—and when he’s angry, when he’s uncontrollably distraught, lightning still comes to cure his ails. Unfortunately, it does nothing to move Mjölnir and Thor can’t move himself when more men come for him and take him to a small, windowless room.

He sits in a chair, waiting. There is no point. Mjölnir has not deemed him worthy. He’s stuck in this mortal form. A man walks in. He’s wearing a dark suit and he looks non-descript, but Thor has learned to read the lines of a warrior. This man has them, even if he tries to keep them hidden.

His voice, when he talks, is soft and even. Disarming, but Thor knows better. “It's not easy to do what you did. You made us all look like a bunch of mall cops. That's hurtful. The men you so easily subdued are highly-trained professionals, and in my experience, it takes someone who's received similar training to do what you did to them. Would you like to tell me where you received your training?”

Thor stays silent, doesn’t look up from the spot on the floor he’s been staring at since this man started to talk.

“Pakistan? Chechnya? Afghanistan? Then again, you strike me more as the soldier of fortune type. What was it, South Africa?” The names mean nothing to Thor, but his silence doesn’t deter this man. “Certain groups pay well for a good mercenary. Especially HYDRA.” He pauses for a long moment, then asks, softly, “Who are you?”

“Just a man,” Thor tells him. That’s all he is, now.

The man tilts his head to the side, obviously not satisfied by that answer. “One way or another, we find out what we want to know. We're good at that.” He leaves, then, thankfully.

Thor returns to looking at the floor.

“I thought he’d never leave,” a voice says, dry as ice cracking.

It makes Thor jerk up, stare at her with wide eyes. “Why are you here?” he demands.

Loki, foul Ice Queen of Jötunheimr, smiles. Her teeth are still far too sharp and she looks like she’s baring them to warn him of an upcoming attack. “Are you not glad to see me, then?” She’s wearing actual clothing this time—a green gown with golden necklaces and bangles and rings. She is fine to look upon, Thor is certain of that, but it strikes him as fake.

“I had heard of your banishment,” she continues. “It was done to appease me, but I wished to see with my own eyes that it had been done.” She moves closer to him, trails her fingers down his cheek. They’re cold as ice.

“So you come to mock?”

Her smile widens. “Mock, never. Simply observe. I will continue to observe, Odinson, for the strings woven around you are tangled, even to my eyes.” She gets a far-off look in those eyes, then, as if she is seeing something Thor cannot. It reminds Thor sharply of Heimdallr’s all-seeing eyes and he aches for home.

She steps away before he can ask and the air warms. “I will see you again, Prince of Asgard. Two times before a fall and again after the dark.” She vanishes as she appeared, leaving behind more questions than answers.

“Farewell,” he tells the empty room.

“Farewell?” the suited man asks, coming back in. “But we’ve just started.”

-

Thor is lost without Mjölnir but finds some solace in Midgardian ale. It’s not nearly as strong as Æsir spirits, but it’s still comforting in its familiarity.

“You were the stories of my childhood,” Erik tells him, leaning heavily upon the bar. The ale obviously touches him harder than it does Thor. “The mighty Thor and his hammer, God of Lightning and Storm.”

Thor feels a rush of gratitude and sadness at the words. “Aye, I am. Was,” he tells the mortal, even though he knows Selvig still does not believe him.

“You weren’t my favorite, though,” Erik says, startling a laugh from Thor for his bluntness.

“No? Tell me, who was? The beautiful Freyja? The all-seeing Odin? Or—”

“Loki,” Erik says quietly. He looks at his fingers on the bar, knuckles red and scarred. “My mother lost two babies before me. Twins. They died inside her. When she would tell me stories of the Gods, I could never imagine the pain of the loss of six children, when I had witnessed my mother’s over two she had never known. But Loki was still powerful. She did not let her sorrow make her. She still bested her betters.” He finally looks at Thor, grinning, all maudlin thoughts gone away like smoke. “She bested you more than once.”

Thor knows not the legends and stories Erik Selvig’s people passed on. None of Asgard had ventured to Midgard after the wars, and no stories were told of Earth in the other Realms. It’s a lonely planet, Thor thinks.

“I have met that mad Queen but twice,” Thor tells Erik. He doesn’t feel the need to tell the man of the strange Sorceress’ mad utterings.

Erik laughs. “You say she is a mad Queen as easily as you say you are a God. I question who here is really mad.” He’s grinning as he speaks, takes a gulp of his drink and starts to mumble about hatters, of all things.

Later, after Thor has poured Erik into Jane’s spare bed, he goes to the roof and tells the woman of the paths through the stars and tries not to yearn for home.

-

Life on Midgard is strange, Thor finds. People are less boisterous and the art of war is nothing more than a necessary evil. He is as out of place amongst the mortals as Darcy—for all her wit—among scientists. He does cope, however.

Of course, like every great tale, that’s when calamity strikes.

“Um,” Jane says, mid-lecture about quantum mechanics. Thor turns to where she’s looking and feels his heart lighten.

“My comrades!” he shouts, striding to the door to let them in.

Sif clasps his forearm, smile lighting her face. Hogun does the same while Fandral and Volstagg both embrace him—the later hard enough to leave even Thor winded. 

“My friends,” he says, after introductions are made all around. “Though I am much gladdened to see you, why are you here?”

Sif clasps his arm again. “The AllFather has fallen into the Odinsleep. He had been putting it off too long. With your banishment and the Jötunn unrest, he could put it off no longer.”

“Jötunn unrest?”

“Yes. Heimdallr tells us that they are gathering, plotting some evil deed. Your mother requested you come home.”

Thor moves his hand down Sif’s arm, so he can hold her hand. She looks startled by the gesture. “My heart lifts that you say I can come home, even as it sinks to hear the cause. But what good would come of me being home? I can scarcely defend myself in this condition, let alone lead our armies. Our warriors would spend more time making sure I came to no harm than making sure the enemies gained no ground.” He hung his head and put his free hand on Volstagg’s shoulder.

A curious sensation came over him, then. It was as if his father stood at his shoulder, hand clasped to his arm. “Whosoever holds this hammer,” he whispered, “shall hold the power of Asgard. That power should never be put before self, but always before people, for Asgard is our charge. It is only through that knowledge that we can lead our people wisely and fairly.”

His voice and presence leave as suddenly as it appeared, but with its departure comes flooding in Thor’s true power.

“Ah,” he says softly. Thor steps away from Sif and the Warriors Three and holds out his hand, walking outside of the building so he won’t put anyone in danger. He can feel her, Mjölnir, calling out to him, singing her song of the stars. She comes streaking in through the air like a bolt of lightning and he catches her, cradles her to his chest. Lightning strikes him, then, but he feels none of the fear he had from the last time.

Instead, he feels only the surge of power that comes with his Godhood—something he had taken for granted until the moment it was taken from him. It feels like coming home, in the best way. His armor returns to him as the lightning frolics up and down his body like a playful hound. 

When the smoke clears, he turns to see Sif, the Warriors Three, Jane, Darcy and Selvig have all followed him outside. The Asgardians are staring at him joyfully while the Midgardians are obviously bewildered.

Jane steps forward, a small frown tugging at the corners of her mouth. “Is this how you normally look?” she asks, trying for brevity but falling short.

Thor clasps her hand, lifts it to his lips to press a kiss to her knuckles. “I will come back. You still have questions that I hope to answer. When this is one, I will come back.”

She smiles, though her lips quiver. “I’ll hold you to that.”

He gives her back her hand and moves to Erik, embracing him. “Keep her safe until I return,” he says softly.

“Always.”

Darcy grins at him, throws her arms around his neck and presses her mouth to his cheek in a sloppy kiss. “Come back and bring me more redheads, okay?”

Thor laughs. “I will see what I can do,” he tells her seriously. He steps back and looks at these mortals, who have taken him and held him in warm regard. His heart is glad to have known them, even as it will mourn this parting. “We must go,” he tells Sif and her Warriors Three. He looks back at Jane and smiles, suddenly. "Would you like to see the Bifrost?" he asks.

Jane grins, eyes still wet, but excited. "Of course."

They leave Erik and Darcy and their lab of glass and steel and walk away from town. Thor is aware of the eyes watching them, but pays them no heed. They make their way to the Bifrost site quietly but with purpose.

The man in the black suit is there to meet them.

“You haven’t been entirely honest with me, Doctor Blake.” He glances at Jane, Sif and the Warriors Three. “I see you brought friends, this time.” His eyes flick to Mjölnir and back so quickly that Thor would have missed it if he hadn’t been looking for it.

“You must let us pass. I am needed in my Realm. If I do not go, great harm could befall yours.”

The man tilts his head to the side and Thor knows he is one of the most dangerous men he’ll ever meet. He hides it behind his pleasant smile, but there is power lurking there.

“Is there any way I can stop you?” he asks bluntly.

The honesty surprises a smile out of Thor. “No. Not now. Your warriors could not stop me, and I do not want to harm them should they want to try.”

The man nods. “Very well. Just answer me one thing, will you?”

Thor nods.

“What’s your real name, Doctor Blake?”

“Thor Odinson, God of Thunder and Storm.”

The man smiles a bit. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Phil Coulson. I hope we never, ever meet again.”

Laughing, Thor clasps the hand of the son of Coul. “Aye. I hope we do not. But know this, son of Coul. You and I, we fight for the same cause—the protection of this world. From this day forward, count me as your ally.” He pauses, looks at Jane, then back to Coulson. “If you return the items you have stolen from Jane Foster.”

“Not stolen. Borrowed.” Jane shoots him a narrowed-eyed look and he nods. “You’ll get your equipment back. You’re going to need it to continue your research, which, after today’s events, SHIELD would like to fully sponsor. If that’s all right with you.”

Coulson steps back to his black vehicle after Jane nods, watching as Thor, Sif and the Warriors Three step into the Bifrost site.

“Heimdallr! Open the Bifrost!” Thor shouts. Immediately, the storm clouds start to gather and Thor feels the atoms open and split around him.

Traveling via the Bifrost is like being encased in ice. There is no air to breathe, no heat to warm the blood. It’s over in an instant, but for that instant, Thor feels as if he is dying and being born again in one.

“Prince,” Heimdallr says, bowing his head to him, a hint of warmth in his voice. “You are most welcome back into the Realm. Your mother waits in the throne room.”

Thor nods, turns to his comrades in arms. “Go to the battalions. Tell our men to prepare, be ready to go to their stations.

“Yes, m’lord,” Sif says, bowing her head to him, surprise and satisfaction on her face. She takes the Warriors Three with her down the Bifrost to the barracks while Thor takes Mjölnir to the air to get to the throne room. To his mother.

She embraces him tightly as soon as he enters the room. “You are back to us,” she says softly. She sounds weary in a way Thor has never heard, before.

“I am sorry there was ever cause for me to leave.”

Frigga smiles, but it fades quickly. “Your father sleeps. The stress of your banishment laid too great a siege on his heart. As soon as he lay down, Heimdallr Saw the Jötunn preparing to move on us.”

Thor holsters Mjölnir, feeling her weight for the first time in decades. “Why would that mad Sorceress move on Asgard? Has she lost what little sanity remains?”

“We do not know,” Frigga says, frown marring her lovely face. “Her power keeps her shielded from Heimdallr’s gaze.”

“But we can see the movements of her army? Why would she not then cloak them as well?” Thor asks, settling heavily on the steps of Hliðskjálf. He’s not prepared to sit on the throne himself—he does not deserve it, yet.

“You see them for they are not _my_ armies and do not deserve to be hidden from your Seer’s gaze,” Loki says, appearing before them suddenly. She’s dressed for battle, armor gold and shining but mixed with the poison green of her eyes. The circlet she’d worn when Thor saw her first is altered, great horns protruding from the forehead and circling over and behind her head. The tips are wickedly sharp and Thor does not doubt they could pierce the strongest armor. 

Thor bolts up, poised to throw Mjölnir. “You! How dare you enter my father’s Kingdom!”

The mad Queen shakes her head. “I told you, son of Odin. We would meet twice before a fall. Before the dark. This is not my doing.” She glances to the side at Frigga, stare blank and cold. “Certain members of my Realm have never appreciated my taking of father’s throne. He had sons they felt should rule. They have never liked my magic nor my appearance.” She gestures to her Æsir guise.

“Why keep it, then?” Thor asks, holding Mjölnir down, but not putting her away. He would be a fool to trust this woman, and he is no longer a fool.

“So they can never forget who rules them,” Loki says simply, smiling. There is no amusement in the expression. “These rebels have found a sorcerer to bring them across the paths the great Heimdallr does not guard. They’re coming to kill the royal line while Odin sleeps.”

She pauses and they all hear the powerful thrum of the Bifrost turning on. Thor watches in horror as the bridge energy does not shoot out into the cosmos—it remains locked upon Asgard. Great arcs of lightning erupt from the Observatory, striking anything nearby. Buildings erupt in flames as the lightning touches them and Thor can hear his people screaming.

“They have breached your defenses.” Loki’s voice is guttural and when Thor turns to look at her, he finds himself stepping back. Her eyes hold nothing but madness and darkness and he knows that Death will touch those she finds. “They are before your father’s chambers. Go. I will deal with those below.”

She disappears and Thor has but a second to send a prayer to the Norns for any who get in her way. Frigga grabs his arm and they hurtle down the halls towards Odin’s sleep chambers.

The guards outside are dead, partially frozen. Thor curses and breaks from his mother’s grip, hefting Mjölnir in his hand. He shouts when he enters the room, momentarily startling the two Jötunn who are standing over Odin’s defenseless form. He sends his hammer flying, knocking the Jötunn with the ice blade away and into the wall, neck crooked at an impossible angle. The other backs away from Odin, eyeing him warily.

“You will not win this fight, Prince,” he says, voice low. It makes Thor’s ears ache. “Your House will fall and that impudent bitch will learn her place at our heels.”

“You underestimate a bitch’s teeth when she is threatened,” Frigga snarls, coming from behind the Jötunn and running him through with her sword. He slumps over, eyes wide with surprise, sword still through his belly.

Thor holsters Mjölnir and rushes to embrace his mother. “Will you be well here on your own? They may send more, but I need to know what’s happening at the Observatory.”

Frigga presses a kiss to Thor’s forehead, then steps away, nodding. She yanks the sword from the dead Jötunn’s body and wipes the blood on her dress. “I will be fine. Go. She cannot do this on her own.”

There is no doubt that his mother will protect Odin to her fullest. Thor forgets that Frigga was a warrior before she was a wife, but he shall remember the lesson the Jötunn gave his life to teach. With one last look at her, standing over Odin’s bed and trailing a hand down his cheek, Thor exits the palace, Mjölnir hurtling him through the air.

-

The Observatory is chaos when Thor arrives. The lightning of the Bifrost is destroying everything it touches, except for the control panel. Heimdallr is slumped over his sword, ice clinging to his cloak and armor. There are dead Jötunn everywhere and when he finds her, Thor sees that Loki is covered in blood, a cut sluggishly bleeding on her cheek. She looks fierce and crazed and Thor hopes, for the Jötunn’s sake, that their passing was quick.

A sentry has made his way to the Observatory as well and Thor grabs his arm. “Take Heimdallr to the healing rooms, now. Do not let anyone stop you. If you see Sif or one of the Warriors Three, tell them I am here. Their duty is to get the people of Asgard to the hold, keep them safe. None are to come here. Do you understand me?”

The sentry looks shaken, eyes wide and face pale. They have never fought a battle on Asgard soil. “Yes, Prince,” he says, voice quivering. He’s young. This is probably his first taste of war. He makes his way to Heimdallr, though, slings his arm around his shoulder and quickly gets them away from the Observatory.

Now that Thor doesn’t have to worry about his citizens, he looks back over to Loki. She’s got a Jötunn cornered. He’s old and hunched with age, eyes the blue of blindness. She has a dagger pressed to his throat and when Thor draws near, he can hear her hissing at him.

“Undo your silly tricks, or I’ll make sure your death takes days,” she’s telling him, blade pressing hard enough against his throat to cut.

The Jötunn smiles, blood covering his teeth. “Do what you will to me. I will undo nothing. This Realm will fall and then nothing will stand in our way.”

“Pity you will not be there to witness it, then,” Loki says, betraying her threat and moving her blade lightning-quick, slitting the Jötunn’s throat. She stands up while he chokes on his own blood, hands dripping with it and turns to Thor. “I can’t break his magic.” She says it simply, but Thor imagines he hears the frustration behind the words at having to admit she can’t do something involving magic.

“There is nothing we can do?” Thor asks, watching the lightning arc from the Bifrost controls.

“Not unless you want to destroy the Bifrost.”

Thor knows there’s no other choice. He has made promises, does not want to leave Midgard on its own, but. Those promises mean nothing compared to the lives of his people. “Then that is what I will do.”

They leave the Observatory, Thor and this mad, bloodied Queen. She stands at his back while Thor raises Mjölnir above his head, brings her down hard enough for cracks to appear the Bifrost. He lets out a guttural noise as he brings her down again and once more. The Bifrost is humming a jarring note with each strike. He can hear it crying out as it starts to splinter.

“I should have known it was you,” Loki snarls, making Thor pause before his final blow. He looks over his shoulder, sees her tiny before a great hulking mountain of a Jötunn.

The Jötunn laughs at her, arms already covered in ice sharp enough to kill. “Laufey should have slain you the moment you were born a whelp of an abomination. To think he gave you the throne instead.” He strides towards Loki, arms upraised and ready to pierce her through.

Before Thor can get to her, the ice blades run through her stomach and breast. Thor cries out, but the noise turns to confusion when Loki melts.

“You always were a stupid one,” Loki hisses, appearing behind the Jötunn. “That’s why I won the throne.” She uses the same motion as before, when she slit the blind Jötunn’s throat, but this time, his head comes completely off. The look of surprise is frozen on his face. 

“Worthless.” Loki tosses the head over the side of the Bridge, watching dispassionately as it is swept away by the churning waters below. She wipes her hand across her forehead, leaving it a gory mess, then looks back to Thor. “Finish that before there’s nothing left of your world to save.”

Her ruthlessness is frightening and cold, but Thor doesn’t let himself get caught up in those thoughts. He has a mission to finish. Thor raises Mjölnir above his head, calling on all of his strength—he calls on the storm and the lightning and every single piece of himself that he has ever known, asking for borrowed strength to keep his people safe.

Thor brings Mjölnir down one last time upon the Bifrost and everything goes white.

Both Loki and Thor are hurled into the air at the force of the explosion. The energy of the Bifrost is all around them, electric and dangerous, but it doesn’t touch them. Instead, it rips a hole into the fabric of space itself. The Observatory rips itself apart as the energy from the Bifrost runs across it.

As they fall, Thor grabs onto Loki’s bloodied hand, clutching onto her desperately. If they fall into that black void, they fall together. Before they can get too far from the fractured remains of the Bifrost, someone grabs Thor’s leg, holding them in the air.

He turns his head, sees Odin crouched on the Bifrost, holding onto him with the strength Thor remembers from his childhood. His eye is bright and shining, his grip almost painful. “Father!” he shouts. Odin’s fingers tighten around his leg in response.

“Once more before a fall,” Loki whispers. She laughs. Thor hears her above the chaos of his burning Realm and looks back to her. She’s smiling, but this time it’s not a barring of teeth. It’s soft as she looks past Thor to Odin, then back to him. “Once more after the dark.” She stops gripping Thor’s hand back.

“Loki, _no_!” Thor shouts, trying to keep his hold on her hand, but the blood makes it slick, makes her slip away from him. He tries to re-grip her but—

It’s too late. Loki falls into the jagged hole ripped by the Bifrost energy. She’s carried away, along with the debris of the Bridge and the Observatory. Before she disappears completely, her expression turns to one of terror, then to resignation.

Loki disappears and the tear collapses in on itself.

Odin pulls Thor back onto the Bridge, catching him when, exhausted, he collapses. “It is over,” he whispers, arms tight around Thor’s shoulders.

-

A feast is prepared three nights after the Observatory is lost. The city is in repairs and the people are beginning to once again rejoice.

Volstagg sits at the great table, telling those around him how he battled a legion of Frost Giants that tried to overtake the healing rooms. Hogun is quiet at his shoulder, watching him, a small smile on his face. Fandral has his arm about a maiden, telling her something softly. Sif stands at the hearth, watching everything.

The chandelier is a boat full of candles. There are curved horns in every decorative piece adoring the tables. Thor made sure they were added to the mourning motif, when no one else would have thought to. Few Asgardians were lost; all were warriors who now wait in the hall of Valhalla, triumphant, so the celebration is for their victory. Few care for a lost, mad Queen of a world of ice.

Frigga moves to Thor’s side, where he’s standing by a pillar, observing the celebration. “My son,” she says softly, placing her hand on his arm. “I am sorry for your loss.”

“Do I deserve to mourn her?” Thor asks, looking to Frigga. “She kept speaking of a fall. She knew it would happen, didn’t she?”

“Loki has always known the strings of fate woven around her,” Frigga tells him. Her tone is soothing, but the words do nothing to stop the hollow feeling in Thor’s chest.

“If I could have held on—”

“She did not want you to.”

Thor nods, steps away from Frigga. “I must go clear my head,” he tells her. He can’t stomach the festivities in this mood, so he leaves, walking out onto an empty balcony.

“You’ll be a wise King,” Odin says, moving to stand beside him. Thor hadn’t noticed him following.

He looks to his father. “There will never be a wiser King than you. Or a better father.” He looks back over the city. “I have much to learn. I know that now. But some day, perhaps, I shall make you proud.”

Odin places his hand on Thor’s shoulder, squeezes once before letting him go. “You have already made me proud.” 

He leaves Thor’s side and Thor breathes in, feeling himself settle.

-

That night, Thor walks down the broken, jagged remains of the Bridge. Heimdallr is standing right at the edge, sword in hand, staring off into the vast reaches of space. Thor steps up to his side, looks at the stars. Knows he isn’t seeing the same thing Heimdallr is.

“Can you see her?” he asks softly.

Heimdallr’s eyes flick to him, gaze piercing. “Which one?”

Thor’s hands curl and uncurl uselessly at his sides. “You know which.”

“Occasionally,” Heimdallr says, looking back into the cosmos.

“How is she?”

Heimdallr is silent for a long time. Thor starts to think that he might not answer when the God finally does. “There is great darkness where she is. The stars have blinked out of existence. Something lurks on the edges, drawing nearer with every breath.” His voice cuts off and Thor knows he is no longer Seeing.

“So we have sent her to her death,” Thor says blankly. He wonders if she is scared.

“No.” Heimdallr pauses. “There is always hope.”

Thor nods, looks at the darkness between the brilliant spots of stars. 

There is always hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be a fourth installation retelling _The Avengers_ into this universe.


	4. The Jaws of Darkness do Devour (So Quick Bright Things Come to Confusion)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Once more before a fall and once more after the dark._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Interlude between the last chapter and the rewrite of _The Avengers_. I'm sorry this took so long. I promise it won't take this long again.

_It’s dark. Dark and cold. A cold she cannot fathom. A cold so unlike her home. Where the cold of her land cradles and rocks and breathes life into her people, this cold takes and rends and kills. This is the cold of death, of desolation. Of nothing. There is no magic here, nothing to call out to her bones and her blood. Just a stark oblivion that fills her with fear—the sort of fear she has never tasted._

__Darkness _, she had told the lightning God._ Once more before a fall _and_ once more after the dark _. But this is more than she ever fathomed. More than any whispers she could have overheard from the weaving Fates. Had they known what awaited her here, at the ends of the known Realms? Or was this too far away even for their tapestry?_

_There is something out there, waiting, watching,_ crawling _. She can feel it, at the edge of herself. Something that is so hungry, for her and for the whole of Creation. It wants to feed on everything in its path, consume it all until there is nothing left. She has never known hunger like this. As if she could never again be satisfied. She has never known such a lust for death and destruction as whatever is in this darkness craves._

_The thing that is in the dark shifts, turns towards her, finally, and Loki feels naught but pain before the darkness swallows her and there is nothing left._

 

-

Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,  
War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it,  
Making it momentany as a sound,  
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream;  
Brief as the lightning in the collied night,  
That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,  
And ere a man hath power to say 'Behold!'  
 _The jaws of darkness do devour it up:  
So quick bright things come to confusion._

—A Midsummer Night's Dream


	5. That fallen am I in Dark Uneven way (And here will rest me)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From the Darkness comes something new.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final instalment! I might one day come back and write a sort of...sequel? Whatever. Who knows! I'm just so fucking glad it's over with. First time I've ever finished an actual chaptered fic! It only took me a year to do so! Yay!
> 
> This one more closely follows _The Avengers_ than the previous one did _Thor_. Dialogue and plot completely lifted, therefore. At this point, I'm not sure if any of my words even make sense. I'm just so fucking glad this is done!

_“The Tesseract has awakened. It is on a little world, a human world. They would wield its power. But our ally knows its workings as they never will. She is ready to lead. And our force, our Chitauri, will follow. The world will be hers. The universe, yours. And the humans…What can they do but burn?”_

-

The days turn into long weeks, which turn into even longer months. The seasons drag on around him, and Thor is painfully aware of time slipping by in a way he has never been, before. He goes to Heimdallr every night and asks him what he sees in the dark. Whether he can see _her_. After three moons have passed, Thor cannot bring himself to ask every night. It turns to every other night, then, shortly, once a week. Soon, he never asks unless Frigg prompts him.

The thought of her, of the Ice Queen, alone in the darkness somewhere, beyond Heimdallr’s Gaze fills his belly with a dread he has never known. Instead, he has Heimdallr turn his eyes towards Earth, and the events that transpire there.

Heimdallr tells him of the Lady Jane, how she searches for him to no avail until she, too, gives up and turns to different pursuits. Without the Bifrost, Thor is not free to travel to her realm. Heimdallr does not possess the magic to send him there himself, and the seiðr necessary for such travel does not crop up amongst his people often. Only the AllFather holds that sort of power, and he can ill afford to waste it sending Thor to another planet. Not with the way he has to use all he has to keep the forces of Jötunheimr at bay.

Without their Queen to reign, there has been naught but civil war on Jötunheimr. The Jötunn blame the Æsir for the death of Loki, refuse to believe she is still alive. Heimdallr hears of their war councils after civil unrest has settled and a new Jötunn sits on the throne. He calls for an invasion of Asgard, to avenge their Queen. Though most of the warriors roar their approval, without the Bifrost, there is no mage there strong enough to send them. So they wait, and they plot and Heimdallr Watches.

When Thor is alone in his chambers, and the dawn is slowly starting to bleed into the dark, he thinks about where Loki is. He imagines, in the brightest of times, that she is simply waiting, in the Dark, for her opportunity to come back. That when she does, she’ll have nothing but scornful words to say to Thor for his worry. That she will take back her throne and quiet the discontent there, after dealing with the last of the hidden rebels.

It’s only when he is in the throes of sleep that his mind brings to him darker thoughts. Of Loki stranded and pleading to be released—of some unknown terror ravaging her body and mind, breaking her of spirit. In his dreams, she calls out to him, looks to him with desperate eyes that sometimes turn to accusation for letting her go. He wakes from those dreams covered in cold sweat, makes himself get up and practice with Sif until his body is so aching and tired that he can rest without dreams.

Nearly a full cycle has passed when something happens.

Heimdallr calls for Thor and Odin to come to the edge of the Bifrost and stand by him. They have yet to construct another Observatory, as the rainbow bridge is slow to heal itself, but Heimdallr keeps his watch at the end, as is his duty. He is staring out into the cosmos when Thor and Odin arrive, but he is visibly shaken in a way Thor has never seen, before.

“What troubles you, my friend?” Odin asks, leaning on Gungnir, although Thor knows he needs it not. He has had his Odin sleep twice, now, since the events of the Jötunn invasion. He is as strong as ever.

“I have seen something stirring,” Heimdallr tells them, voice full of worry that startles Thor. 

“What is it, great Seer?” he asks. Thor has learned much, since the terrible day of Loki’s fall, but patience is hard come when something has shaken the great Heimdallr. 

“A disturbance on Midgard,” Heimdallr says. “A passage has been opened and something has come through which has caused great calamity. The Fallen One has stepped out of the Dark.” 

Thor feels Heimdallr’s words rip through him as if it was a sword instead. He can hardly see, hardly hear. All he knows is one thing.

“Loki.”

-

Odin takes him to a place far from the city after Heimdallr has told them all he has Seen. Something has gone wrong, Loki is not how she was before she fell. Now, she resembles what Thor had _thought_ of her before that far away battle. He must go there, must figure out why she is doing this.

“What she has, the Cosmic Cube, it is powerful,” Odin says, clasping Thor’s arm. “In the hands of the humans, it could destroy everything. You need to take it back, bring it here. The humans will not want to give it to you, for they think this Tesseract the solution to all their problems. But you must retrieve it. It is far too dangerous to remain in their hands.”

Thor nods, grips Mjölnir tightly. “I understand, Father. I will bring it back. I will bring _her_ back.”

Odin opens his mouth, as if he is going to say something, but seems to change his mind. “Do what your heart guides you to,” he says cryptically. He moves both hands to Thor’s shoulders, presses them there hard enough to bruise.

Darkness arises from his palms, but it’s a different kind of dark. It’s the seiðr Odin rarely shows among his people. It shows his Jötunn blood and is a power he feels he need not use unless completely necessary. This is such a time.

The darkness spreads over Thor, from his crown to his boots. The last thing he sees is Odin’s face, watching him solemnly.

“Come back to me, son,” Odin says, voice a distant echo.

Thor tries to nod, but his head won’t move the way he wants it to. The darkness covers his eyes.

-

When he opens them again, he’s hurtling through the clouds, lightning ripping along in his wake. There is a metal air ship ahead and he knows beyond a doubt Loki is inside. He lands on top of the air ship, trying to figure out how to open it and get inside, when the thing does the job for him. It opens its jaws and he jumps down to land on them.

He sees two people in very odd dress, as well as the two at the helm, but they barely graze his consciousness. The only person he has eyes for is Loki.

She is dressed in a manner he has never seen before—for all that he has only seen her in her war armor and nude but for a furred cloak. Now, she seems to favor black leather with green accents and golden bits of metal sewn in for protection. He has seen many Sif don trousers during battle, but the ones on Loki do not suit her. None of this does. 

Thor finally looks to her face, to see just what has happened, and he draws back. There are deep circles around her eyes, bruising that tells of no rest. Her hair is greasy and unkempt, in wild tangles around her face. Her skin, already pale, has taken on the pallor of sickness and her ruby red mouth is cracked around the edges.

But her eyes, Thor notes. Those are what is truly the most wrong. There’s madness in them, something shining and sick. He’s never seen it in her, before. The poison green has been made murky with blue. She grins when she notices him looking.

The man in metal takes a step towards Thor, hand upraised as if to strike, so Thor swings Mjölnir into his chest, knocking him into the other standing person. They both go down and Thor turns to Loki.

He steps forward, grabs her by the shoulder and wrenches her up from her bindings. He feels a deep anger welling up inside of him, mixing with the fear over what has happened. Heimdallr told of the destruction she had laid upon the heads of the Midgardians and he needs to know _why_.

Thor takes them to the edge of the air ship and raises Mjölnir high, taking them away from it and its odd occupants.

-

The flight to the cliff’s face is quick, Thor barely even notices it. Loki doesn’t struggle in his grip, does not try to free herself and it makes Thor so angry he can barely see. He throws her down onto the cliff, stands above her while she makes a noise of discomfort, then laughs. 

“Where is the Tesseract?” Thor asks, teeth gritting together. 

Loki only laughs the harder for it. “Oh, I missed you, too, Thunderer.” She looks up at him with her wrong eyes. “I promised you. Once after the dark,” she sing-songs. 

“Do I look to be in a gaming mood?”

“Oh, you should thank me,” she says, staring to sit up. “With the Bifrost gone, how much dark energy did the AllFather have to muster up to conjure you here? Your _precious_ Earth.” She starts to stand.

Thor drops Mjölnir with a heavy crash, grabs her and puts his hand behind her neck to make her look at him. “I thought you dead.”

Loki smiles. There is a tear at the corner of her mouth and it bleeds sluggishly. “Did you mourn?” she whispers.

“We all did. My father—”

She laughs in his face. “No Asgardian would mourn the death of the Ice Bitch. I know what the Æsir think of me.” She pushes out of his hold, wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and walks away from him.

Thor shakes his head. “We fought together, in that battle. You kept us safe when you had no need, killed your kind for us. Do you remember none of that?” He moves to follow her.

Loki stops and turns to him, eyes wide. “I remember you to tossing me into an abyss.”

The accusation pierces through Thor’s heart. He did not toss her. It was she who let go. He _knows_ that. Has dreamt of that so often. He’ll never forget that. “So you take the world I love as recompense? No. The Earth is under my protection, Loki.”

She laughs, the same laugh that sends chills up his spine as before. But it’s different, somehow. Less like ice falling and more like ice creeping up to kill. “And you’re doing a _marvelous_ job with that.” She spreads her hands. “The humans slaughter each other in droves while you idly fret. I mean to _rule_ them.”

“You think yourself above them?” Thor asks. She, who had never thought to play in Midgard. That was her father’s deed, and she never seemed to want to follow in his footsteps, content to rule Jötunheimr instead.

Loki blinks, tilts her head to the side. “Well, yes.”

“Then you miss the truth of ruling, Ice Queen.”

A noise comes out of Loki at that, something akin to a snarl. “I’ve seen worlds you’ve never known about. I have grown, _Odinson_ , in my exile. I have seen the _true_ power of the Cosmic Cube, and when I wield it—”

Thor moves closer to her. “Who showed you this power. Who controls the would-be-Queen?”

“I _am_ a Queen!” Loki screeches. She bites her lip hard enough to make it bleed afresh.

“Not here!” Thor grabs her shoulders, shakes her. “You give up the Tesseract. You give up this poisonous dream!” He moves his hand to her cheek. “You come home.”

“Not _my_ home,” she hisses, pulling away. “Besides. I don’t have it.”

Thor calls Mjölnir to his hand, raises it in threat, but Loki just laughs at him.

“You need the Cube to bring me away from here, but I’ve sent it off I know not where.” She is grinning, mouth stretched wide and cracked and bleeding.

Thor shakes his head. “You listen well, Loki—” he starts, but then something rams into him hard enough to almost hurt, taking him away from the cliff and Loki’s laughing face.

Thor crashes through the trees and lands on his feet, the metal man landing in front of him. The faceplate slides up, revealing a plain-looking man’s face. Thor grips Mjölnir tighter, wary but impatient. “Do not touch me again,” he says.

The man looks at him steadily. “Then don’t take my stuff.”

“You have no _idea_ what you’re dealing with,” Thor says, looking back up to the cliff. He cannot see Loki’s shape.

The metal man’s gaze follows his, but when he looks back, he looks dismissive. “Shakespeare in the park? Doth mother know you weareth her drapes?” he asks, hands flailing.

Thor stares at him in confusion. Perhaps this man is simple, to speak so. “This is beyond you, metal man,” he says slowly. “Loki will face Asgardian justice.”

The man grins. “She gives up the Cube, she’s all yours. Until then—” His words are cut off as his face plate drops. “—stay out of the way.” His voice sounds metallic and hollow. He turns and takes a few steps forward, spits out, “Tourist,” and Thor has had enough.

He throws Mjölnir, hitting the metal man in the chest, sending him flying to land on his back. Mjölnir flies back to his hand and he spins her in time to be struck by a bolt of fire coming from the metal man’s hand.

Thor calls on his lightning once he is righted, tired of this fight and tired of this metal man. He must be dispatched quickly in order for Thor to get back to Loki. The metal man fires at Thor, the blast more powerful than before. Thor gets back up again, and they stand ready, facing one another. Thor cannot judge this man’s actions, not with his face obscured so. But they fly at each other at the same time, smashing through the trees and scraping up a cliff side.

Trees are toppled as they crash to the forest grounds. Thor and the metal man stand quickly. Thor punches out with his left arm in a feint so the metal man moves to punch back but Thor grabs his fist. The man tries to punch out with the other hand and Thor grabs that too. He begins to crush the man’s right gauntlet, unsurprised that the metal of this planet is not strong enough to dissuade him.

The metal man opens his hand to let out another blast of fire at Thor’s face, but it does not harm him. These puny mortal weapons cannot even _begin_ to harm him. The metal man tries to headbutt Thor, but again, it does no damage. Thor grins, headbutts back and sends the man flying. The man comes back and actually manages to throw Thor, slamming him into a tree.

They continue to battle in this manner for a handful of minutes, neither making more headway than the other. Thor calls Mjölnir again from where he dropped her, ready to call the lightning once more to his service when a metal shield strikes him, distracting him from the attack.

“Hey!” a new man shouts. Thor notes that he is the other man from the air ship, covered in red white and blue for some odd reason. The man has hold of his shield again and he walks towards them. “That’s enough. Now I don’ know what you plan on doing here—”

Thor growls. “I’ve come to take Loki back and end this!”

The man tilts his head to the side. “Then prove it. Put that hammer down.”

The metal man interrupts them. “Uh, yah, no, bad call, he loves his hammer—”

Thor quickly dispatches him with a swing of Mjölnir. “You want me to put the Hammer down?” Thor asks, moving towards this new man. He has had enough of these mortals. He lifts Mjölnir up, intent to strike this new man down and leave to gather Loki, but as he swings down with her, the man lifts his shield. When the two connect, a wave blasts outward, sending all three of them backwards.

The light and sound were enough to calm Thor’s blood lust, but just that. When he gets back up, he eyes the other two men warily.

The new man looks at him. “Are we done here?”

-

To his great surprise, Loki is where he left her, on top of the cliff. Thor knows of Loki’s powers, knows she could have gotten away if she wanted. He wonders why she did not.

The same air craft from before lights down on the cliff after the man in red, white and blue—“You can call me Steve.”—speaks into a device from his belt. They load up into the craft, Thor standing close to Loki the entire time, in case she decides to try something in the air.

She doesn’t. Loki remains quiet and calm throughout the entire trip. She grins when Thor looks at her, but does nothing else. Does not even speak when the metal man—“He’s Tony, ignore him”—tries to instigate a fight.

The ship approaches an enormous craft already waiting in the air and Thor stares at it in wonder. Sometimes, these humans do surprise him with their ingenuity. If they cannot fly upon the air, it makes sense to build something as great as a city to dwell in it. As soon as the smaller craft lands and opens, and entire battalion of men with guns approach, gesturing at Loki.

They place some sort of complicated metal restraints around her wrists, force her out of the craft and to follow them. Thor frowns, moves to follow, but Steve puts a hand on his arm.

“We’re needed elsewhere.” 

Loki is lead away and even though Thor wants to follow, thinks he _should_ , but instead he follows Steve and Tony to another part of the ship.

-

Thor is lead to a meeting room, that much he knows for sure. It may not look a thing like the meeting halls of Asgard, but it still serves the same purpose. There is a mousy looking man with spectacles on, and a woman with a shock of red hair that Thor immediately looks over. He knows the standing of a warrior, and she holds himself as if she knows just how deadly she is. Thor puts it to mind to be wary of her.

The other man, however. Thor watches him. There’s something not right about him, about the way he holds himself. He, too, stands as if he knows he’s a great danger. But nothing about him shouts that danger to Thor. Not like the red woman. Not even like the other two men he fought with. Thor must watch this man who thinks himself a danger to his world as well.

“You know the most about Loki,” the red woman tells him. “You know where she would hide her treasure.” She looks at him, then back to a screen she’s tapping. “I am Agent Romanov. He is Doctor Banner. This is what we have gathered, so far.”

She presses a button and an image appears where there was glass, before. Thor stands and watches, knows this to be a recording of past events. Lady Jane had told him a bit of video before he’d had to leave.

The first is a small, flat shot of a building that looks to be underground. There is a man tinkering with a machine, a man Thor would know from anywhere. “Erik,” he murmurs to himself. He is gladdened to see the man. Another man comes towards him as others dressed like Selvig scurry around. This new man has darkness about him, an eye patch over his left eye, as Odin does. Thor wonders if he sacrificed it to gain knowledge as well.

Thor doesn’t pay attention to what they say. He only pays attention to the Cosmic Cube, blue and glowing. Another man approaches, one Thor vaguely recalls from the time he spent in SHIELD custody. As he speaks, the Cube opens up, emitting a blue light that reminds Thor so much of the Bifrost his chest aches. The blue lightning crawls to the other side of the room and opens a portal. After it has shut itself, a lone figure remains.

Loki looks as mad as when he first laid eyes on her tonight. She looks as if she has been to Hel and back, but only barely. Her eyes are even wilder a blue than they are now, and the staff she carries echoes that terrifying color.

She dispatches of the men around her quickly, automatically, as if she doesn’t even know what she’s doing. Most of them die, from either her blades or the staff’s blasts. She presses the tip of it against the familiar man’s chest and the blue glow swallows him up, makes his eyes wrong. 

“Agent Barton,” Romanov says softly, answering his silent question.

She goes for Erik, next, then takes the briefcase the man with the eye patch—“Director Fury”—loaded the Cosmic Cube into. Quickly after she leaves, there is a blue explosion and the video fuzzes out.

Romanov starts to play another video. Security feed from a gala of some sort. Loki interrupts, wearing a gown made of black, gold and green silk. There is still madness about her eyes, and she looks gleeful as she attacks the guards and the defenseless man. She takes his eye with some device, then leaves the building, gown dissolving into battle armor.

The screen changes and Thor knows it to be what’s happening presently.

Fury walks into the room while Loki is being locked into a glass cage, moves to some panel. “In case it’s unclear, you try to escape, you so much as scratch that glass—” he presses a button and the floor beneath the cell slides open, showing the drop below. The wind howls, sound sending a cold shiver up Thor’s spine when he thinks of Loki falling again.

“Thirty thousand feet straight down in a steel trap. You get how that works?” The Director pushes another button and the floor reveals itself again. He gestures at Loki. “Ant.” The gesture moves to the panel. “Boot.” Thor rankles to hear Fury call Loki an ant.

But Loki laughs. “It’s an impressive cage. Not built, I think, for me.”

“Built for something a lot stronger than you,” Fury corrects.

The grin stretches across Loki’s face, looking painful. “Oh, I’ve heard.” She turns to the camera in her cell, and it’s as if her gaze is piercing straight into Thor. “A mindless beast, makes play he’s still a man,” she says softly, eyes flirting around Thor to where he knows Banner stands. “How desperate are you, that you call on such lost creatures to defend you?” she asks, finally turning away and looking at Fury.

“How desperate am I?” Fury asks. He moves towards the cage, slowly. Thor sees the danger in his steps. “You threaten my world with war, you steal a force you can’t hope to control. You talk about peace and you kill ‘cause it’s fun. You have made me very desperate. You might not be glad that you did.”

Loki laughs again. “Oh. It burns you to have come so close, to have the Tesseract, to have power—unlimited power, and for what?” She smiles, turns to the camera again. “ _A warm light for all mankind to share_?” She turns away. “And then to be reminded what _real_ power is.” Loki and Fury stare at one another until Fury quirks his mouth and turns away.

“Well, let me know if ‘real power’ wants a magazine or something.” He leaves the room, not sparing another glance at Loki.

Thor watches Loki move to the center of the cage until the monitor cuts off and Thor is forced to turn and look at the gathered forces.

“She really grows on you, doesn’t she?” Banner asks, smiling. He’s hunched in on himself, tense. 

Steve frowns. “Loki’s gonna drag this out.” He turns to Thor. “So, Thor, what’s his play?”

Thor looks away. “Our Seer tells me she has an army called the Chitauri. They’re not of Asgard, nor any world known. She means to lead them against your people. They will win her the Earth, in return, I suspect, for the Tesseract.” 

Steve looks concerned. “An army, from outer space?”

Banner gnaws on his bottom lip before speaking. “So she’s building another portal. That’s what she needs Erik Selvig for.”

“He is my friend,” Thor says.

“And Loki has him under some kind of spell, along with one of ours,” Natasha speaks up.

“I wanna know why Loki let us take her. She’s not leading an army from here,” he says.

Banner grins. “I don’t think we should be focusing on Loki. That lady’s brain is a bag full of cats, you can smell crazy on her.”

Thor sends him a sharp glance. “Have care how you speak. Loki is beyond reason, but she is a Queen of her realm. She fought at my side once.”

Natasha looks at him blankly. “She killed eighty people in two days.”

Thor shrugs, perturbed, but unwilling to change his remark.

“I think it’s about the mechanics,” Banner says, speaking aloud for all that he looks like he’s speaking to himself. “Irdium, what do they need the Iridium for?”

“It’s a stabilizing agent,” Tony says, walking into the room flanked by the son of Coul. Thor is much gladdened to see him. “Means the portal won’t collapse on itself like it did at SHIELD.” Tony looks at Thor. “No hard feelings, point break, you got a mean swing.” Thor does not raise to his bait, keeping silent instead. “Also, means the portal can open wide and stay open as long as Loki wants.” He moves to a control panel, then looks at SHIELD personnel around him. “Raise the mizzen mast, ship the topsails!” Thor is glad to see the personnel look at him as if he speaks gibberish as well. Tony does not look perturbed to be gazed at so. “That man is playing Galaga!” he says, pointing to a man a few rows down. The man ducks his head. “Thought we wouldn’t notice, but we did.”

Tony moves towards what must be the command area of the ship and covers one eye. “How does Fury even see these?”

A dark woman turns and looks at him coolly. “He turns,” she says, as if he is dirt she’s found beneath her boot. Thor likes this woman.

“Sounds exhausting!” he says as he starts to mess with something underneath a desk. “The rest of the raw materials, Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. Only major component he still needs is a power source, of high energy density. Something to kick-start the Cube.”

The dark woman glares at him. “When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?”

Tony grins. “Last night. The packet, Selvig’s notes, the extraction theory papers—am I the only one who did the reading?”

Steve turns away from Tony and to Banner. “Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?”

Banner frowns. “He’d have to heat the Cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier.” 

“Unless Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the Quantum Tunneling effect,” Tony pipes in.

Tony heads over to Banner and the two start to speak in words Thor could not begin to understand. When Steve asks what just happened, Thor only shrugs. He was not made to comprehend these sorts of things. Lady Jane would be more comfortable with this discussion. 

He tunes back in to hear Tony say, “And I’m a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster.”

Banner ducks his head, says, “Thanks,” quietly and Thor finds himself reassessing this Doctor.

Fury joins them, then, and the conversation turns to a more confusing discussion. Thor is growing impatient with everyone and the way they all _talk_ as much as possible, but he is learning to be a leader, and a leader listens when people with knowledge greater than him speak. It doesn’t stop him gripping Mjölnir tighter, as if to ward off the headache he can feel creeping in from trying to keep up.

Finally, Tony and Banner peel off together and Thor is lead to a quarters he might call his own while they try to figure out how to stop Loki from opening another portal.

-

Thor returns to the bridge when a man comes to the door of his quarters telling him the son of Coul would like to speak to him. They stand side-by-side, Thor comforted to be in this man’s presence again. Coulson had hoped not to meet Thor again, but they stand as allies, here.

“As soon as Loki took the doctor,” Coulson says, bringing up a video feed of Lady Jane, “we moved Jane Foster. We’ve got an excellent observatory in Tromsø. She was asked to consult there very suddenly yesterday. Handsome fee, private plane, very remote. She’ll be safe.” 

Thor nods, watches the video feed. “Thank you. It’s no accident, Loki taking Erik Selvig. I dread what she plans for him once he’s done. Erik is a good man.”

They leave the video monitor and walk through the bridge together.

“He talks about you a lot,” Coulson says. “You changed his life. You changed everything around here.”

Thor looks at him sadly. “They were better as they were. We pretend on Asgard that we’re more advanced, but we—we come here battling like Bildschneip.”

Coulson looks at him in confusion. “Like what?”

“Bildschneip. You know, huge, scaly, big antlers? You don’t have those?”

Coulson shakes his head. “I don’t think so.”

“Well, they are repulsive, and they trample everything in their path.” Thor moves over to a window, watches the clouds move past them. “In my youth I courted war.”

“War hasn’t started, yet.” Fury appears on a set of stairs above him. “You think you can make Loki tell us where the Tesseract is?” he asks.

Thor shakes his head. “I do not know. Loki’s mind is far afield. It’s not just power she craves. It’s vengeance upon me. There’s no pain would stop her need from her.”

“A lot of guys think that, until the pain starts,” Fury says mildly.

“What are you asking me to do?”

Fury looks him straight in the eyes. “I’m asking, what are you prepared to do?”

Thor frowns. “Loki is a prisoner.”

“Then why do I feel like she’s the only person on this boat that wants to be here?”

-

The Director leaves and Thor stays in his spot by the window, contemplating his actions in this game of war. He does not want to hurt Loki, does not want to do what Fury is suggesting ever-so-carefully (torture, his mind whispers to him), but he must keep Earth safe. Must return the Cosmic Cube to his father.

Romanov finds him there. “Loki is after the Hulk. You need to come with me to the lab.” 

Thor frowns, follows after the red woman.

The walk is short and when they enter Banner’s lab, the fight is already in full effect.

“Did you know about this?” Banner asks, pointing at Romanov.

She stares at him blankly. “You want to think about removing yourself from this environment, Doctor?”

Banner laughs, sounding rigid. “I was in Calcutta, I was pretty well removed.”

Romanov takes a step closer. “Loki’s manipulating you.”

“And you’ve been doing _what_ exactly?”

“You didn’t come here because I bat my eyelashes at you.”

Banner grins, but there is no humor in the expression. “Yes, and I’m not leaving because suddenly you get a little twitchy.” He backs away from them. “I’d like to know why SHIELD is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction.”

Fury frowns, points at Thor. “Because of him.”

Thor feels the shock flow through him. “Me?”

“Last year Earth had a visitor from another planet. We learned that not only are we not alone, but we are hopelessly, hilariously, out-gunned.”

Thor shakes his head. “My people want nothing but peace with your planet—”

Fury smiles and it’s grim. “But you’re not the only people out there, are you? And, you’re not the only threat. The world’s filing up with people who can’t be matched, they can’t be controlled.”

Steve looks truly angry, now. “Like you controlled the cube?”

“Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it, and his allies,” Thor says. “It is the signal to all the realms that the Earth is ready for a _higher form of war_.” He can feel Steve’s anger stirring up his own.

“A higher _form_?” Steve asks in disbelief.

“You forced our hand!” Fury shouts. “We had to come up with some—”

“Nuclear deterrent! ‘Cause that always calms everything right down,” Tony says, voice sharp with disapproval.

Thor finds himself being drawn into a verbal sparring match between all the people in the laboratory. He can’t help arguing back, especially when accusations are lobbied against him. He feels that, as he talks, he is getting angrier and more defensive, even though he does not _want_ to be drawn into this fight.

“You speak of control, yet you court chaos,” Thor says finally, drawing all their attention.

“It’s his MO isn’t it?” Banner asks softly. “I mean, what are we, a team? No, no, no. We’re a chemical mixture that makes chaos. We, we’re a time bomb.” 

Fury steps forward, hands raise in surrender. “You need to step away,” he says softly.

Tony and Steve start to pick at each other and Thor is impressed by how much the two seem to hate one another.

Fury tries to speak over the arguing. “Agent Romanov, would you escort Doctor Banner back to his—” 

“ _Where_?” Banner asks. “You rented my room!”

“The cell was just—”

Banner waves him off. “In case you needed to _kill_ me. But you _can’t_ , I know, I tried!” He cuts himself off and Thor finds himself drawn to look at him, as much as everyone else is. “I got low. I didn’t see an end, so I put a bullet in my mouth, and the other guy _spit it out_. So I moved on, I focused on helping other people. I was good until you dragged me back into this freak show and put everyone here at risk.” Banner turns to Romanov. “You wanna know my secret, Agent Romanov? You wanna know how I stay calm?”

Thor notices Romanov and Fury reaching for their guns, knows it’s because of what Banner holds.

“Doctor Banner, put down the scepter,” Steve says softly.

Banner looks down, as if surprised to see the spear in his hand. Before he can say anything, the monitor makes a noise, signaling something. Banner puts the spear down and walks over to the screen. “Sorry kids,” he says softly. “You don’t get to see my party trick after all.”

“You have found it?” Thor asks. He ignores Steve and Tony behind him. “The Tesseract belongs on Asgard, no human is a match for it.”

Before anyone can say anything, there is an explosion that sends Thor flying.

It’s chaos after that.

-

Fighting the Hulk is the only time he’s ever been afraid during a movie. But Thor knows that Agent Romanov is in danger, and he will not let such a good warrior die at the hands of a friend who would regret it.

He tries to make Banner see reason, but there is no Banner there. Only the Hulk’s rage staring into Thor. The Hulk actually makes Thor bleed, makes him work _hard_ in the fight. The more Thor fights, the angrier the Hulk gets. Even his inability to wield Mjölnir is not a blessing. It just makes him angrier.

They go through multiple levels of the ship, tearing everything apart in their wake. The only thing that distracts the Hulk from wanting to destroy Thor is the air ship pelting him with bullets through the window. Thank Odin he goes down with the airship, and Thor can breathe again, even if he does feel regret at Banner’s imminent death. There’s no way any mortal could survive that fall.

Thor turns and makes haste to the cage where Loki is being kept.

-

He makes it to the cage room only to see the door opening, Loki ready to walk out. He shouts, runs for Loki to keep her inside the cage, but as he touches her, she dissolves and falls through her. The door shuts before he can get up and escape. It’s the same trick as the one she pulled on the Jötunn rebels when they fought together.

“You fell for that?” she asks softly, standing outside the cage with a smile.

Thor hits the glass wall with Mjölnir, crying out. The glass cracks, but it beings to shake, as if something has been knocked loose. Thor looks around, feeling wild.

Loki laughs. “The humans think us immortal. Shall we test that?” 

She moves to the panel that Fury stood at, so short a time ago, but pauses when a soft voic calls out.

“Move away please.” Thor looks and sees Coulson standing there, huge gun at the ready. 

Loki does move away from the panel, staring warily at the gun.

“Like this?” Coulson asks, making a gesture with the gun. “We started working on the prototype after Thor came here. Even I don’t know what it does. Do you wanna find out?” His finger moves on the trigger, but Loki disappears.

She reappears a second later, runs him through the chest with the blade on her spear. Coulson makes a choked-off noise and falls to his knees.

“No!” Thor screams. He presses both hands against the glass, stares at Loki in horror. 

Loki smiles at him, tilts her scepter and moves back to the control panel. Thor watches her, sadness encasing his heart. She gives him one last smile and presses the button to open the floor. 

The cage falls down through the hole and Thor goes with it.

-

The sky rushes past the falling cage, but Thor cannot concentrate on it. He’s sent flying, hitting the walls over and over again as the cage turns. He finally gets his bearings, braces himself against the wall and hefts Mjölnir up. He pushes off, rushes at the wall and hits it with his Hammer. The glass explodes outwards just before the cell hits the ground and Thor crashes head-first into the dirt.

-

He gets up soon enough, walks over to where Mjölnir has fallen amongst the tall grasses. He looks at her and remembers what it was like to have her power taken from him. To not be able to heft her weight around, as so few can. He hesitates to pick her weight up again.

He is conflicted in this fight as he has never been conflicted before.

Thor does not know if he can lift her against Loki. He knows something is wrong with her. She cannot be in her right mind. She would never…never kill Coulson like that. For no reason. None of this is something she would do. She never craved more than what she had. She was _content_ in Jötunheimr. She would not _do_ this.

But the Earth means everything, to Thor. The Earth does not deserve what Loki and her Chitauri would do. More good men do not deserve to die for a battle they are not prepared for.

Coulson deserves to be avenged. 

Thor picks Mjölnir up, raises her to the sky and calls his lightning to him. He calls on the storm and the heat and he raises himself into the sky.

Thor flies to where he is needed.

-

The hole in the sky and the unending tide of Chitauri tell him exactly where to go. He lands on a balcony below Loki, looks up and beholds the insane glee writ on her face. She once again has her battle armor on, horns curving up dangerously over her head.

“Loki, turn off the Tesseract, or I’ll destroy it!”

Loki turns to him and grins. “You can’t. There is no stopping it. There is only the war!”

Thor feels something settle in himself. “So be it.”

Loki leaps at him with a feral snarl, spear upraised. Thor blocks her, swings Mjölnir at her head to try to end this battle as quickly as possible. Loki dodges with a swiftness he did not expect of her, spear unleashing blue blasts everywhere, not caring what damage she causes. An air ship hovers next to Stark’s tower and Loki lets a blast out that clips its wing. Thor hits her with Mjölnir to distract her from the ship and remind her he’s there.

A truly heinous beast makes its way through the portal. It’s huge, bigger than anything Thor has ever faced and it goes for the buildings immediately. Thor does not know how many countless lives are being sacrificed at this moment.

He grabs Loki, pins her down to the ground, shouts, “Look at this! Look around you! You think this madness will end with your rule?”

Loki is laughing, blood smeared over her face from their fight. Her wide eyes look glassy. “It’s too late. It’s too late to stop it.”

Thor shakes his head. “No. We can, together.” 

That makes Loki pause her laughing. She looks up at him, eyes wide, then smiles. That’s when Thor feels the searing pain of a knife being shoved between his ribs. “Sentiment,” she whispers.

Thor pulls himself back up, lifts Loki and throws her over the edge of the building, but instead of plummeting down, she rolls onto a passing Chitauri craft.

He pulls out the dagger and surveys the carnage happening around him. He sees the tiny specks that are Steve and Romanov and Barton and uses Mjölnir to take him to them. His lightning helps kill the Chitauri scum threatening them. When he lands, his legs try to give out, but he will not let them. The wound Loki gave him will not stop him.

“What’s the story upstairs?” Steve asks, coming towards him.

“The power surrounding the cube is impenetrable,” Thor grates out.

“How do we do this?” Romanov asks.

Steve looks at them all. “As a team.”

Thor shakes his head. “I have unfinished business with Loki.”

“Yeah?” Barton asks, screwing arrow heads onto the shafts. “Get in line.”

“Save it,” Steve says. “Loki’s gonna keep this fight focused on us and that’s what we need. Without her these things could run wild. We got Stark up top, he’s gonna need us to—”

Steve is interrupted by the sudden appearance of Banner on a motorized vehicle of some sort. Thor looks at him and feels gladness fill him up. He’s more than happy the Doctor did not perish after his fall.

“So, this all seems horrible,” Banner says, looking around him.

The corners of Romanov’s mouth quirk. “I’ve seen worse.”

“Sorry,” Banner says, genuinely.

Romanov shakes her head. “No, we could…use a little worse.”

Steve says something directed towards Tony. Very shortly, they look up to see Tony heading towards them in his suit, the leviathan creature following him closely behind.

“I don’t see how that’s a party,” Romanov says softly.

Thor holds Mjölnir at the ready as Banner starts to step forward, looking up towards the sky.

“Doctor Banner,” Steve says. “Now might be a really good time for you to get angry.”

Banner stops and looks back at them, smiling. “That’s my secret, Cap. I’m always angry.”

Before their eyes, Banner transforms into the Hulk, but this time it’s different. Thor does not feel fear, looking at him. This is a monster meant to defend, not to destroy. He and Tony work together to bring the Leviathan down and destroy it. 

As the Chitauri scream in rage around them, Thor stands in a circle with the other warriors. Together, truly, they are a team now. They will weather this storm as one.

Before they can celebrate the destruction of one leviathan monster, more come through the portal, followed by hundreds of Chitauri warriors. Steve quickly lays out a plan of action that makes Thor proud to serve beside him. He raises Mjölnir and heads towards the tallest tower he can find.

Once he lands, he raises Mjölnir and calls down the lightning to attack and rend and destroy every Chitauri piece of scum coming out of the portal. It takes much more strength than it should with his wound, but he will not stop. Not until this fight is over.

He leaves his building and flies to where the Hulk is making his way through a leviathan monster. He strikes it with his lightning, riding it down as it crashes and dies. He and the Hulk stand side-by-side after it’s down and though the Hulk smashes him in the side, sending him flying, Thor knows it’s a gesture of companionship.

They make their separate ways after that, both battling any Chitauri they come across. Thor finds Steve on the ground and goes to his side, helping him up again. He catches Mjölnir when she comes back to his hand. He looks up just as Tony flies above him, missile in his arms. He goes into the portal above his tower and Thor does not look away as the Chitauri start to die around him.

He and Steve both see as Tony falls out of the sky.

“Son of a gun,” Steve says softly.

“He is not slowing down,” Thor says, already starting to swing Mjölnir. He isn’t needed, however, as the Hulk comes from the skies and catches him, bearing him down to their position.

They land, but Tony does not move, even after the Thor rips off his face piece. Thor stands above him, knowing Tony died a warrior’s death and thus will be granted place at Valhalla’s tables, but still saddened to see him dead. 

The Hulk roars in frustration and Tony gasps, eyes opening.

“What the hell? What just happened? Please tell me nobody kissed me,” he spews out, quicker than Thor has ever heard any man speak before.

Steve starts grinning. “We won.”

Tony lets out a sigh of relief, head falling back to the ground. “Oh. Alright, hey. Alright. Good job, guys. Let’s just not come in tomorrow. Let’s just take a day. You ever tried shawarma? There’s a shawarma joint about two blocks from here. I don’t know what it is, but I wanna try it.”

Thor looks down on his friend, face grim. “We’re not finished, yet.”

Tony is quiet for a moment. “And then shawarma after?”

-

They get back to Stark’s tower, all of them together, and surround the prone form of Loki. As if sensing they’re there, she wakes, turns over and sits up. She looks around herself, as if confused, then turns and sees them standing before her, Barton with his arrow notched and ready to strike the final blow. Natasha holds her scepter.

Thor stands just to his left, watching Loki, looking into her eyes. Barton’s, he’s noticed, no longer have the sickly blue tint to them. Loki’s, when she finally lets her eyes rest on him, are the green of poison.

She holds Thor’s gaze for a moment’s held breath, before turning to Tony. “If it’s all the same to you,” she says, leaning back against the stair she used to maneuver herself up, “I’ll have that drink now.”

-

“I cannot allow you to be free,” Thor says, sounding apologetic. He is firm in his stance, though, knows his allies would not allow him to change his mind.

Loki is lounging in her cell, as if it is her throne. She’s no longer wearing any of her armor, choosing for a simple green gown that plunges far too deeply and cuts up far too high. “I know,” she says easily.

It’s one of her more lucid periods. Other times, her eyes return to the same maddened blue they were. Although she has some sort of magic upon her now, Thor saw the marks that adorned her body when they first took her into custody. Some injustice had been done to her when she was still in the darkness, and she has yet to speak of it.

“I can take you to Asgard. There are healers there who could find what infests your mind and take it out.” 

“Yes, we cannot simply beat it out of me each time, can we? There would be scarce anything left if we were to rely on that method of remedy.” She looks over Thor’s shoulder, to where she knows Banner is lurking, listening. The Hulk’s battering was what shocked her awake, as with Romanov’s to Barton. But she has been under far longer than Barton ever was. The madness still lurks.

“I am taking the Cosmic Cube back home. You can join me. I can help you,” he pleads.

It had taken so long to get Fury to agree to Thor’s insistence of Loki coming back with him. There was never an argument about the Tesseract—Fury didn’t want it on Earth as much as Thor didn’t. But Loki was a war criminal, according to Fury. No matter how much madness gripped her.

None of them could argue it, though. They’d all seen the madness come and go from her, could see her fight it with their own eyes. Ever Barton recalled periods where Loki had seemed to be at odds with herself when commanding him, and Erik told them that, though the design flaw had been his choice, Loki had made a comment about a weakness that must have made his mind think of it. Barton would never trust her, but he understood what it was to be controlled. Even Banner and Tony looked at her with more pity than anger.

Fury wasn’t happy, but he wasn’t going to fight Thor’s insistence that Loki come with him.

“And if I go back with you,” she said softly, spreading her hands over her thighs. “Will I be locked in another cage for all eternity? The AllFather tried that with me, once.” Her mouth quirks up, but there is no humor in her expression. “Will I ever be allowed to return to my world? My people? My rightful throne?” She says this last with some bitterness, as Thor has told her how Jötunheimr fares in her absence.

“I could no more keep you prisoner than my father could. But I cannot leave you here, and I cannot let you free completely. Not until the madness has withdrawn completely.”

Loki finally looks at him, not around or through him. There is pain in her eyes, but it’s pain she will not let him look at for long. “You know your healers could fix this magic laid on me?” she asks, voice soft. No hint of mockery.

“I can guarantee they will try,” Thor tells her, just as solemn in his vow.

She nods, then looks away. “I guess your halls will have a guest, then.”

-

They leave with the Tesseract, and although Loki is in chains, to make Fury and his commanding officers happy, he knows she is going towards freedom. His people will heal the madness within Loki’s mind. She will be free from it as the Earth is now free from Chitauri. He knows it.

The other Avengers do not trust her, not completely, and that is understandable. But they have never seen her stand with them in battle. Thor has. Thor knows her stories. Knows she has heard the Fates whisper in her ears all her life. 

Nothing will stop him from helping her.

They both grip the cylinder Erik has constructed to house the Tesseract. They both twist their handles and are consumed in blue lightning to take them back to Asgard.

-

_“Humans…They are not the cowering wretches we were promised. They stand. They are unruly and therefore cannot be ruled…To challenge them, is to court Death.”_

_In the Darkness, there is laughter._


End file.
